


The Philosopher's Stone

by The_INTJ_Sagittarius_Scorpio_Gryffindork



Series: Poison's Flower [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Female Harry Potter, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-12 07:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10485612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_INTJ_Sagittarius_Scorpio_Gryffindork/pseuds/The_INTJ_Sagittarius_Scorpio_Gryffindork
Summary: You know the story.  Harry Potter gets a Hogwarts letter while Voldemort plots to steal the Philosopher’s Stone.  But this Harry Potter is a girl named Atropa, and she hasn’t exactly had the same childhood as the Harry we know.  An artistic girl with a distant and cold suburban family raised mostly in Muggle boarding schools, she doesn’t think life has much new to toss her way.  How wrong she is.  Thrown into a world of magic that she never knew existed, she struggles to master her powers and find her own place despite being singled out in more ways than one.





	1. Chapter 1

Two weeks after the end of term, Atropa was sitting at the Dursleys’ kitchen table for breakfast. She had as usual spent most of the summer writing to or calling friends, being at Mrs Figg’s, or wandering to keep away from her aunt and uncle and from Dudley’s mockery.

Dudley was getting rowdier by the day. He was bought an ever increasing number of toys, and broke every single one of them. It didn’t matter. In Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s eyes, Dudley was perfect, and destined for what were (in their mind) great things. He’d started getting into fights and beating people up; they turned a blind eye.

They heard the click of the mail slot and the flop of letters on the doormat. “Get the mail, Atropa,” said Uncle Vernon from behind his morning newspaper.

“Again? Why does it always have to be me?” Atropa demanded indignantly.

Uncle Vernon looked past his newspaper. “Did I stutter?” he asked, glaring.

Atropa sighed, stood, and went to get the mail. She was in a bad mood, she knew, and had been for quite some time. She looked down at the door mat, and saw the usual: a bill, a postcard, and a letter for her. 

She walked into the kitchen, handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, and said absently, “I got a letter,” frowning thoughtfully as she sat down to open it. 

No one gave any response. Atropa got letters from school friends all the time.

But she noticed this letter was odd. It was written on yellowish parchment with emerald green ink. The address included which place geographically in the house her bedroom was. There was no stamp or return address. And it had to be hers. It was addressed to “Miss A. Potter” of Surrey, this neighborhood, this address.

She turned the envelope around, saw the purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms from her dreams, and her eyes widened. This was it. This was the letter that was supposed to be so important.

She slit it open and two pieces of parchment paper fell out. She picked up the first one. It read as follows:

Dear Miss Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. 

The term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Atropa stared at the parchment paper for a long moment as it all came together. Her powers. Her strangeness and not fitting in. Her aunt and uncle’s strictness with her. The odd, frightening dreams of green light and screaming and her scar.

She was a witch. Her parents had been a witch and wizard. They hadn’t died in a car accident at all. Her aunt and uncle were afraid of her and her magic. They’d lied to her, all these years.

“Girl? What is it?” She looked up to find her relatives frowning at her, and her expression became matter of fact again. 

“Nothing,” she said, tucking the letter away. “Just a friend going through some troubles.”

-

She packed her suitcase that night and crept downstairs without turning on any of the lights. She stopped by Uncle Vernon’s desk, stole all the money from his wallet, and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she crept out the front door, shutting it gently and silently behind her.

Carrying her suitcase, she set off in a run down the black empty street.

She couldn’t stay with them. Not after a realization like that. She had to escape, to get out of here, to become a witch.

All of it - even Enterprise, in the end. It hadn’t satisfied her, not really. It was all ordinary. And Atropa didn’t want ordinary. She didn’t belong here. She never had.

She remembered Mrs Figg’s words to her at six years old, echoing now through her mind: “And you’re not normal, are you, Atropa? You don’t want to be normal, do you?”

In a divine moment of clarity, Atropa realized she didn’t want to be normal, the way her relatives would irrevocably have her be. She would leave, and she would leave willingly. 

She wanted to be a witch.

She was short of breath by the time she’d run to the local bus stop, sitting down to wait for the bus. When it arrived and the doors opened, the man looked at her uncertainly. “I’m, er - meeting a relative at the train station,” she said, handing him the first of her money.

He looked uncertain, but took it willingly enough, and she took the bus to the train station that led out of Surrey.

At the train station’s pay phone, she hurriedly called Susie, then Rachel. She didn’t know who else to turn to. Mrs Figg was too close to the Dursleys. “Something - something’s happened,” she said breathlessly; she couldn’t imagine what she must sound like. “I need for us to meet at Susie’s house, okay?”

She used most of her remaining money to take the train to Susie’s home city. She knew the Harbings would take her in. She had a compartment to herself, and after getting a snack, she sat there wondering how to contact this Hogwarts place.

Just then, an owl flew right through her compartment window. She jumped backward and shrieked - and it opened its beak, as if waiting. “... A messenger owl,” she breathed in realization. “It knew. It must be magic.”

She hurriedly scribbled down a letter.

To whomever finds this:

My name is Atropa Potter and I accept my Hogwarts invitation. I am currently on the run from my relatives, who kept my magic from me all these years. Could someone from Hogwarts come find me and tell me how to get my materials and arrive at the school?

I will be at --

Thank you very much for your time,

Atropa Belladonna Potter

She had given them Susie’s address and signed her name in fancy cursive script. “Take this to Hogwarts,” she whispered to the owl. It clamped the letter in its beak, and flew off into the night.

-

She arrived at Susie’s city in the wee hours of the morning. Susie, Rachel, and the Harbings were waiting bleary-eyed at the station for her. Atropa was still wide awake. She couldn’t seem to relax.

“At least you called someone,” said Mrs Harbing fretfully. “You gave us such a fright.”

“What on earth is going on?” said Mr Harbing in bewilderment, as Rachel frowned in alarmed concern and Susie put a worried hand on Atropa’s shoulder.

“I - I can’t -” Atropa didn’t seem able to find the words.

“Never mind that,” said Susie’s older brother. “Let’s get her home.” 

They drove in silence back to Susie’s place, and kept her there for the next few days. They never asked her to leave, never called anyone, and Rachel stayed the entire time. Atropa was an anxious mess. She paced up and down constantly, exhausted but wired.

Nightmares, secrets, magic, running away, lies, no return letter from Hogwarts - it was all too much. Years of stress piled on top of Atropa, close to an eventual break.

Then one day the doorbell rang. “Mrs Figg!” Atropa heard Mrs Harbing say in surprise, and she gasped and ran to the door. Standing there was Mrs Figg and an unlikely addition: a big, hairy man, a giant of seven feet tall, in a leather jacket.

“Oh, Atropa!” Mrs Figg hurried forward and gave her a tight hug. Atropa relaxed into her familiar scent in relief.

“Mrs Figg,” she murmured. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here with Hagrid from Hogwarts.” Mrs Figg stood back to look at her.

“From Hogwarts?” Atropa asked sharply.

“Rubeus Hagrid. Nice to meet’cha.” He shook Atropa’s whole arm.

“Atropa, you are going to Hogwarts, but you must come back to your aunt and uncle’s with us right away,” said Mrs Figg. “There are a few things we need to explain first.”

Atropa scowled. “I don’t want to go back,” she said rebelliously.

“I know, dear. But you have to. You’ll still become a witch. Don’t you want answers?” Mrs Figg asked.

And so in the end, somewhat begrudgingly, Atropa left with Mrs Figg and Hagrid on the train back to Surrey. They left Susie, Rachel, and the Harbings staring in utter bewilderment after them. 

Atropa would continue to write to them for the next decade and beyond, sending them regular shipments of money from mysterious sources. But all they knew was that she went to another boarding school with a funny name, one they had never heard of.

She never went back to Enterprise School for the Arts at all.

Her name was mysteriously expunged from all subsequent Muggle records, though her Enterprise paperwork remained. For all Muggle record intents and purposes, Atropa Potter mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth at eleven years old.

But Atropa’s story was only beginning. She had quite a long explanation waiting for her from several people back on the Dursleys’ Privet Drive in Surrey.


	2. Chapter 2

She was an odd little thing. Tiny, pale, and pixie-like, wearing a black vintage minidress, black platform shoes, black lipstick, cat’s-eye eye makeup, blue and purple and green face makeup, and dangling fantastically colored glass shaped earrings. She'd actually changed from a Gothic gown and hair bun to this getup, and he'd seen a baseball cap and baggy cargo pants in her bag. Her long straight black hair fell past her shoulders and down over one eye, making the other bright green one seem bigger somehow. She had a heart-shaped face, delicate features, and a slim form, and raised a person’s protective instincts almost instantly.

But her persona, the feeling she emitted, was another thing altogether. She was cool, silent, steady, and confident, very hard to read in emotions and expressions. She rolled her suitcase down the walkway toward her aunt and uncle’s house, scowling reluctantly. They were there, glaring, to meet her at the door.

“Here’s your money,” she said rebelliously, stuffing the remaining cash roughly into her aunt’s open hand. Mrs Figg looked uncertain and uncomfortable. The Dursleys looked murderous.

Hagrid got the feeling there was something bigger going on here, something he didn’t understand.

They all entered the house, and in the living room the fight began.

“You didn’t tell me! You didn’t tell me a thing!” Atropa suddenly shrieked, losing her cool completely. “I was a witch all those years and you never told me!”

“Because we didn’t want you to be one!” Mrs Dursley shouted back, seeming almost as angry as her niece. Atropa looked momentarily taken aback, as if her aunt had never lost her cool before. “We didn’t know what to do, Atropa!”

“Why don’t you want me to be a witch?!” she demanded.

“Because they’re freaks!” Mrs Dursley hissed, and Atropa flinched back as if struck. Furious, Hagrid went to shout something, but Arabella Figg raised a hand to stop him. Her expression was veiled. She seemed to want to let them fight it out.

“What about my parents? Were they freaks?” Atropa asked in a low, heated, hurt, furious voice. And at this, Mrs Dursley at last had the decency to look away.

But Mr Dursley filled in the gap. “They most certainly were! And you’re not going to that school, and I’m not paying to send you!”

“I am going to be a witch! I’m going to be a witch if I have to leave home and save up my entire life to be one!” tiny little Atropa Potter positively snarled.

“You’ll die just like your parents did!”

“See if I care!”

“Oh, you’re just like her,” Mrs Dursley hissed. “Just like your mother. Raised by a family of good, normal people, but totally ungrateful, waltzing away into a world of awe inspiring fantasies. Our parents worshipped her. I was the only one who saw her for what she was: A freak! Who could do freak things! I was glad not to be like her! And then she met that Potter at her freak school, and they went off and got married and had you - and I knew you’d be just like them - and look where all their great power landed them! There’s a reason you were raised by us, you know!”

“Some things are more important than safety and normality, Aunt Petunia. I’m going to be a witch. Try and stop me,” said Atropa fiercely. Hagrid could have applauded her.

“I demand -!” Mr Dursley began, but Mrs Dursley held him back, her expression veiled.

“Let her, Vernon,” she said, all the fight draining out of her. Both Atropa and Mr Dursley, and even Atropa’s silent and frightened cousin in the corner, stared at her in surprise. And so Mrs Dursley told them what she had learned that fateful night: about the aboveground and belowground people, the pockets of space and Forget Me Not charms, the world bridging, the blood magic, and the reveal - if Atropa did not accept her magic, she would die, and possibly take others down along with her. “I always knew,” said Mrs Dursley, exhausted. “It’s why I held myself back. I always knew she’d go there, in the end.

“If that’s what will make you happy, Atropa.” And she sat down firmly in an armchair and crossed her arms. “So be it. I won’t try to stop you and I’ll say nothing further. You can stay here during summers until you’re seventeen, and then we’d like you to leave.” Her voice was tired and hurt.

“... Yes, Aunt Petunia,” Atropa whispered solemnly. “Thank you.”

“But Petunia - are you sure -?” Mr Dursley began, flabbergasted.

“What else are we to do, Vernon? Turn the girl out on the street and leave her homeless and at the mercy of dark magic?” Mrs Dursley asked icily. “Would we continue to be decent people if we did that?”

Mr Dursley twitched furiously for a moment. “Fine,” he growled at last. “But I’m not paying for that bloody freak boarding school.” And he stomped flat-footed to the corner beside his now openly gaping son.

The kid’s changing expressions had been kind of funny to watch.

But there was one more bit to uncover. Atropa turned to Mrs Figg. “Mrs Figg - how do you know - why are you here?”

Mrs Figg sighed, and told her piece - the whole truth.

Atropa looked genuinely stricken and betrayed. “Why - why didn’t you ever tell me?” she whispered. “Because you were ordered not to? Is that all I ever was to you, an order?!” Tears had filled her eyes.

“No, Atropa, that’s not true at all,” said Mrs Figg hurriedly, impassioned. “I knew you couldn’t go back to that world, darling. Not yet. And… I didn’t want you longing for something you couldn’t have. So I sent you off to Enterprise instead.” She shrugged helplessly, ignoring the Dursleys’ sudden glares with positively remarkable contempt. “And now -” She attempted a smile. “You’re ready to return. And I am so proud of you.”

Atropa looked emotional for a moment, then reached forward and engulfed Mrs Figg in a hug. They stood there for a moment.

Hagrid got a little teary, and eventually cleared his throat gruffly. Atropa and Mrs Figg broke apart. “So I think I have a fairly good idea now,” she said. “Of the basic layout of the wizarding world. And I’ll be going to a boarding school for witches and wizards, to study magic, but I’ll be staying summers with my aunt and uncle until I turn seventeen. I’ve got that.

“But I get the feeling there’s more to this story,” she added tentatively. “Isn’t there?”

Hagrid and Mrs Figg looked at each other and sighed. “Tha’s where I come in,” said Hagrid. “Me an' Arabella. Flimsy as we are for explainin’.”

“We weren’t just assigned to show you where to buy school supplies and enter the wizarding world, dear. We weren’t just assigned by Dumbledore and McGonagall to tell you about Hogwarts,” said Mrs Figg sympathetically.

Hagrid threw himself down in an armchair, which groaned and sagged under his weight.

“Sit down, kid, ‘cause this is one hell of a story. An' it apparently involves yer Mum's blood magic.”


	3. Chapter 3

And so Hagrid began his tale.

“It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it’s incredible yeh don’ know his name, everyone in our world knows -”

“Oh, just out with it!” Mrs Figg snapped. “No one knows what his given name was, but he fashioned himself as the Lord Voldemort!”

Hagrid flinched. “Yer not supposed to say his name -!”

“Yes, out of fear! And I’m a Squib, no magic whatsoever, which means you should be less frightened than me!” said Mrs Figg fiercely. She turned bluntly to Atropa, whose eyebrows had risen skeptically. Wouldn’t refusing to name someone all the time just get desperately confusing? “He was completely insane, Atropa. A mass murderer planning on genocide, desirous of immortality.”

“Can she understand any o’ that?” Hagrid muttered conspiratorially, with about as much tact as Susie Harbing.

Mrs Figg smiled at Atropa. “You’d be surprised what she can understand.” Atropa smiled back. “Alright, Atropa, history lesson time.” Mrs Figg settled herself down in front of Atropa. Hagrid looked rather miffed at having his story taken over.

Mrs Figg explained:

“Witches and wizards first separated from Muggles - or non magical people - during the witch hunts. Previous to that, as humans we tried to live quietly and anonymously within the Muggle world. The undergrounders separated long before us. That’s why there are so many fantastical medieval fairy tales. Not all of them were fairy tales.” She winked. Then there was a sobering over her expression. “But no. The Muggles would not let us. Most adult wizards and witches could escape Muggle clutches, but wizarding children were often caught and burned at the stake.

“So we created our own world, separate from the Muggle one. But some political sides have had trouble letting go of the past. They believe that we should use our great power to take revenge on the Muggles and gain full control over global society. Some of them even believe in genocide, wiping out not only all Muggles, but all Squibs and all Muggleborns - like myself and your mother.

“The problem with that is, there aren’t enough of us. Without interbreeding with Muggles, falling in love with them, marrying them, we’d all have become incredibly inbred long ago. Even putting morality aside, it would not be a wise choice.”

“But You-Know-Who went fer it,” said Hagrid gruffly, injecting himself back into the conversation. “He started lookin’ fer followers. Got ‘em, too. Some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o’ his power, ‘cause he was gettin’ himself power, alright.”

“Many of his followers were Dark creatures - Dark magic being violent magic, the kind that feeds on all life forms - and old blueblood Pureblood families who saw themselves as superior and wanted glory,” said Mrs Figg helpfully.

“Dark days, Atropa,” said Hagrid, “didn’t know who ter trust, didn’t dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches…”

“We were in a civil war, but there were no geographical barriers,” said Mrs Figg. “You wanted to think that nice person you met in a coffee shop was working for Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic, instead of for Voldemort and the Dark Side, but you didn’t know it.”

“Terrible things happened,” Hagrid agreed. And apparently even they couldn’t stomach telling a ten-year-old girl what those things were. “He was takin’ over. ‘Course, some stood up to him. And he killed ‘em. Horribly. One o’ the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore’s the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of.”

“Dumbledore is a very powerfully political wizard, but that is the chief reason why he was chosen to lead the Light side,” explained Mrs Figg. “Apparently, Voldemort used to attend Hogwarts, as Dumbledore’s student. He was afraid of Dumbledore in the way a student is of an awe-inspiring teacher. Dumbledore always seemed to be one-upping him.”

“You-Know-Who didn’t dare try takin’ the school,” Hagrid agreed, “not jus’ then, anyway.

“Now, yer Mum and Dad were as good a witch and wizard as I ever knew. Head Boy and Girl at Hogwarts in their day!” Hagrid said cheerfully.

“Your parents have a very romantic love story, Atropa,” said Mrs Figg mischievously. “Your mother was a beautiful but poor Muggleborn, your father a sporty and entirely arrogant Pureblood. They hated each other at first, but by the end of their time at Hogwarts together, they’d fallen in love. Their marriage was quite scandalous in Pureblood circles, I can tell you that much. And after they’d graduated, they both joined Dumbledore’s side to fight together!” She raised her fists. Atropa was smiling, amazed and disbelieving, curled up on the living room floor listening to the story.

“Suppose the myst’ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get ‘em on his side before,” Hagrid added thoughtfully. “They were powerful enough. Probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore to want anythin’ ter do with the dark side.

“Maybe he thought he could persuade ‘em… maybe he just wanted ‘em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an’ -” Hagrid began getting choked up.

“Everyone liked your parents, Atropa,” said Mrs Figg sadly. “Everyone who knew them - including myself and my husband. Voldemort murdered them inside your house. He was good at murdering people. He was an amazing wizard, but that is - through practice - the kind of magic he was best at. He could kill someone with a single wand wave, without a second thought.”

“An’ then - an’ this is the real myst’ry of the thing -” said Hagrid intently. “He tried to kill you, too. Wanted to make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin’ by then. But we all know how that worked out. Yer clever Mum got the best of him. She protected you from him, the spell rebounded, and he was gone.”

“A body was never found,” said Mrs Figg. “He just… disappeared. Never to be seen again. He wasn’t entirely human by that point, from Dark magic experimentation on himself, so we don’t really know what happened to him. All we know is that the spell successfully rebounded and hit its target. It glanced against that lightning bolt scar on your forehead, creating the cut.

“Nobody knows that part, of course. Nobody knows why you survived. They just know that you did. You’re quite famous in the wizarding world. You’re known as the Girl Who Lived. Another reason, besides blood magic, why Dumbledore thought you might be best off spending your childhood here.”

“You have to understand, Atropa, nobody ever survived You-Know-Who. He’d killed some o’ the best witches and wizards of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts,” Hagrid listed off. “And you was only a baby, an’ you lived.”

“You became a symbol for people, Atropa,” said Mrs Figg.

“I remember that night,” said Atropa suddenly. Everyone, even the Dursleys, stared at her. “My Mum was screaming…” She frowned, trying to remember. “And he was laughing, laughing as he killed them. He had this high, hysterical, chilling sort of laugh.

“And the Killing Curse is green. Brilliant green. Like my eyes. And my forehead hurt where the curse bounced off of it.”

Everyone in the room had paled.

“That’s all I remember,” Atropa said in a small voice, big-eyed. “I… I’ve been able to do what I think is magic. For a long time. Is that normal?”

“It’s known as accidental magic,” said Mrs Figg. “Or, in its more powerful and controlled forms, wandless magic. And it is the sign of a healthy and powerful witch.”

Atropa relaxed. “So… what happened after he was gone?”

“In the world?” said Hagrid. “We rounded up his followers and the war ended. Fer you? Me, McGonagall, and Dumbledore brought yeh here. You’ll meet them two at Hogwarts. Took yeh from the ruined house meself, on Dumbledore’s orders… brought yeh ter this lot… Then Arabella Figg, she came along later, also fer Dumbledore.

“He really did try to look after yeh, you know,” Hagrid added. “I know it might seem in kind of a weird way, but Dumbledore’s always been like that. He’s a good man, though, Dumbledore. Brilliant, too, and powerful.”

“I think Dumbledore would be good at chess,” observed Atropa. 

“Brilliant at it,” Hagrid smiled.

“What is McGonagall like?” Atropa added longingly.

“Tough and no-nonsense. Very intelligent, and right to the point. She’s your deputy headmistress. A very strict woman, but a good person and an excellent teacher,” said Mrs Figg. “By the way… happy birthday.” She smiled and pointed at the chiming clock on the wall. Atropa whirled around in surprise to look at the time. “It’s midnight on 31 July. You’re eleven years old.

“That’s a very important year for a witch, you know. That’s the year you start your training, and Hogwarts is a public school all dramatic pronouncements of working for the rest of your life aside,” Mrs Figg smiled. Atropa relaxed sheepishly. “The Ministry funds it. So, for your eleventh birthday tomorrow, how about we get you your own witch things? You get a pet, and a wand, and a cauldron, and -”

“Do we have flying broomsticks?!” said Atropa eagerly.

Mrs Figg and Hagrid laughed. “Racing brooms. Yeah, we have ‘em. Can go many miles per hour and have cushioning charms and safety features. You spend yer first year learning flying on the school brooms,” said Hagrid. “Then yeh get yer own.”

“What kind of pet do I get?”

“Only owls, cats, and toads allowed. Officially,” Hagrid added evasively. 

“Hagrid has a love for magical creatures,” said Mrs Figg conspiratorially. "He's Hogwarts groundskeeper." 

“There are magical creatures?”

“Oh, yes, lots of them!” said Mrs Figg. “Each one unique. Some of them are just as human as us. And you’ll learn all about that at Hogwarts.”

“How many years there?”

“Seven,” said Hagrid. “Seven years and yeh get out when yer eighteen. Then yeh pick a career. Only ours are a little… different, I suppose.”

“What do you hire people to do when you can do anything?” Atropa wondered.

“Well, there are teachers, Healers or doctors, reporters, bankers, government people, Aurors or policemen… Lots of things the Muggle world has,” Mrs Figg began. “There are magical researchers, and Potioneers who are rather like pharmacists, and Herbologists who grow the plants for the Potioneers, and people who specialize in all kinds of wand work. There are working class people, in shops and places like that. And then there are people in sports, music, writing, art, theater… You could be a witch and an artist, Atropa. You could do it all!” Mrs Figg declared.

“Oh, is she an artist?” Hagrid asked curiously. “You should talk to Professor Flitwick. He loves that sort o’ thing, got lots o’ school clubs about it.”

“The only thing is we don’t have much technology,” said Mrs Figg. “We’ve advanced about as far as radios and record players, and are reluctant to go any further. We don’t even have televisions, let alone computers. It takes a lot to configure strong magic in with technology, and we only have a certain number of technomages available to us.”

“Please tell me you have indoor plumbing,” said Atropa dreadingly.

“Oh! Yes, we have that. Certainly,” said Mrs Figg. “I meant more like… we use magical messenger birds, fireplaces, quills and parchment and ink, robes… that sort of thing. We also have older architecture. Lots of tiny little ancient buildings and cobblestone streets. Hogwarts is a medieval castle!” she added brightly.

“And you hide all this… with charms,” said Atropa disbelievingly.

“Oh yes, no offense to Muggles, because I am very fond of them, but they are blind as bats,” said Mrs Figg in amusement. “A spot of magic and they can go all funny in the head. You just watch. I’ve seen wizards and witches court Muggles and it is the funniest thing - the smallest feat of magic can make them all googly eyed and fascinated.”

The Dursleys had been listening curiously despite themselves in a corner. Atropa supposed it was all very surreal for them - hearing about witches having things like banks. Hagrid went to Mrs Figg’s house and they all retired for the night, but on the stairs Dudley said, “Atropa.”

Atropa turned in surprise to look at him from the stairwell. They were completely alone, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon upstairs in their bedroom.

“Screw what Mum and Dad say,” said Dudley defiantly. “I think what you are is cool. It’s not my thing, but it’s definitely yours. Pipsqueak,” he added, making a face at her on the stairs and then stomping up to his room.

Atropa paused on the stairs, and smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

Atropa bolted down an early breakfast in the kitchen the next morning and then, with her relatives watching disapprovingly, she hurried excitedly out of the house - and then paused, resisting the urge to laugh. Hagrid was squeezed into the passenger feet of Mrs Figg’s tiny car, ducking so his head didn’t hit the ceiling.

Atropa got into the back seat, still amused, and Mrs Figg sighed and rolled her eyes. “He’s going to break my bloody car,” she muttered, starting them on the car trip to London.

“Hey. Yeh think I’m any happier bein’ stuck in this slow little box?” Hagrid grumbled.

“Don’t insult the car or you get to walk to London.”

Hagrid harrumphed and took out a newspaper called The Daily Prophet. The black and white photos on the newspaper moved. “Do all wizarding photographs move?” Atropa asked, leaning forward, fascinating.

“Yup. All pieces of art do,” confirmed Hagrid. “It’s a charm. Gives ‘em a few personality traits. They’re not much to have a conversation with, but it looks nice.” The people in the black and white photographs smiled and waved at Atropa.

“I really must learn that,” she murmured. “How did you get the paper?”

“An owl flew it over. Owls can find where y’are, yeh know. I got a subscription,” said Hagrid. He was perusing the paper, frowning. Atropa had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was difficult. She’d never had so many questions in her life. “Ministry o’ Magic, messin’ things up as usual,” Hagrid muttered, turning the page.

“What does the Ministry of Magic do? What is it like?” Atropa asked before she could stop herself.

“It does all the things a Muggle Ministry does. It has departments, sets up events, makes laws and regulations,” said Mrs Figg from the driver’s seat.

“But its main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there are still witches and wizards up an’ down the country,” Hagrid added informatively. “I mean, think about it. Muggles knew about magic, they’d be wantin’ all kinds of magical solutions to their problems. Nah, we’re best left alone. They have ta figure out all that fer themselves.

“They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o’ course, but he’d never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. He pelts Dumbledore with owls every mornin’, askin’ fer advice.”

“So what are we going to do in London today?” Atropa asked.

“Well, we get to the Alleys - wizarding London shopping centre,” said Hagrid. “We get yer money. Then we buy yer school stuff.”

“So we’re going to the bank to get money from the school fund?” said Atropa matter of factly. Hagrid and Mrs Figg shared a sly smile. “What?” she asked, frowning, looking from one to the other.

“Well… we didn’t exactly wanna tell yer aunt an’ uncle, in case yeh didn’ feel like sharin’...” began Hagrid smugly. “But yer father’s family is filthy rich. He left yeh all his money. The Potters have been rich since circa 1100’s, English all the way back.”

“... How much am I worth?” Atropa asked, flabbergasted.

“In pounds? Somewhere in the millions.” Hagrid shrugged, smirking. “Yer from one o’ the richest families in our world.”

“You have a trust fund you can access now, set up by your parents and constantly replenished by the family account, and then the Potter family account when you come of age at seventeen,” said Mrs Figg. “You don’t have to worry about running out of money, because technically your family is still making money. You have a wizarding ancestor in the twelfth century who invented several commonly used medicinal potions. He was always pottering around in his garden - hence, ‘Potter.’

“So your family gets a cut of money every single time a Pepper-Up Potion or a Skele-Grow potion is brewed and bought. To give you some perspective, Pepper-Up is a cure for the common cold while Skele-Grow is used to treat broken bones.

“Safe to say, you’re paying for all this with your own money.”

“What is the bank like?” Atropa asked, still trying to recover from this little shock. The idea of being a millionaire seemed odd to her.

“Well, it’s called Gringotts,” said Hagrid. “Run by goblins.”

“Goblins?” Atropa asked disbelievingly.

“Yeah - so yeh’d be mad ter try and rob it, I’ll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Atropa. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want to keep safe - ‘cept maybe Hogwarts. I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business.” Hagrid puffed out his chest proudly. “He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin’ you - gettin’ things from Gringotts - knows he can trust me, see.”

“Hagrid never finished school at Hogwarts, and some people look down on him,” said Mrs Figg, when Atropa looked skeptical. “Dumbledore’s trust in Hagrid is a mark of the fact that he doesn’t look down on others. It’s very important.”

“You never finished school?” Atropa asked.

Hagrid looked sheepish. “No, I was, er - I was expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an’ everythin’.”

“Why -?” Atropa began, and then Mrs Figg looked at her in the rearview mirror and shook her head just once. Atropa noticed Hagrid discreetly tapping the dashboard with a tattered pink umbrella from the pocket of his coat. Subtly, that part of the car seemed to widen to suit his legs better. Atropa got the sudden, suspicious feeling that Hagrid’s wand was not as gone as he liked to pretend.

“Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?” Atropa asked instead. 

“Spells - enchantments,” said Hagrid. “They say there’s dragons guardin’ the high security vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way around - Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Muggle tunnel system fer them fancy trains. Yeh’d die of hunger tryin’ ter get out, even if yeh did manage to get yer hands on summat.

“Can’t yeh go any faster?” he added in irritation to Mrs Figg.

“Not without killing us all,” said Mrs Figg crossly. Hagrid harrumphed again and looked out the window. He was obviously not used to getting anywhere without magic.

-

They stopped at last at Charing Cross. Atropa got out of the car and looked around. She’d been here hundreds of times, and she didn’t see any special shopping centre anywhere. “Why are we -?” she began.

Hagrid and Mrs Figg tapped her on the shoulder and pointed. Atropa looked around and jumped in surprise.

Somehow, incredibly, there was a pub between the bookshop and the music store - a pub she had never noticed in all her time at Enterprise. “That’s incredible,” Atropa whispered. “It’s right there.” The Muggles hurrying by never glanced at it. Their eyes slid from the bookshop on one side to the music store on the other, blankly, blindly, as if they couldn’t see the pub at all. It was tiny, dark, and shabby, with a sign overhead that read The Leaky Cauldron.

Mrs Figg and Hagrid steered her inside, and Atropa was pitched headfirst into the wizarding world.

It was a dark, sooty, redbrick little place, as shabby on the inside as it was on the outside. Old-fashioned wood surfaces gleamed dimly everywhere. Smoke drifted in a haze over the buzz of chatter inside the pub. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry; one of them was smoking a long pipe and the scent filled the entire pub. They were all wearing pointed hats, and corsets over fanciful dress-like robe designs. A little old man in a long violet top hat was talking to the toothless old bartender, who was smiling from behind the bar and had a brown, weathered face, cloth over his shoulder.

It was like Atropa had just stepped into a totally different time period - with a few particularly interesting additions. Mrs Figg wasn’t kidding when she said wizards hadn’t been keeping up with modern technology.

The talking stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid. They waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, “The usual, Hagrid?”

“Can’t, Tom, I’m on Hogwarts business,” said Hagrid, clapping a great hand on Atropa’s shoulder. Atropa bent a little under the weight of that hand.

Hagrid seemed to want to show off, and Mrs Figg was behind him hissing, “No! No, Hagrid, wait -!” A second later, Atropa realized why. The bartender got a good look at her, and his eyes flicked up to the famous lightning bolt shaped scar on her forehead.

“Good Lord,” he said in a hushed voice, “is this - can this be -?” The pub had gone utterly still and silent. Atropa felt the weight of countless gazes, as one by one more and more eyes flicked up to her forehead. “Bless my soul,” the bartender whispered, tears filling his eyes, “Atropa Potter. What an honor.” He hurried around the bar, reached out and shook her hand fervently.

This, Atropa somehow hadn’t been expecting. She’d been told she was a symbol for people, of triumph and survival over evil, of the end of a terrible civil war and reign of terror. But somehow she hadn’t been expecting for people to become tearful just by looking at that mark on her forehead, the mark of what had killed her parents. She had no idea what to say or do. Everyone was staring at her. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out.

Atropa was quite used to being anonymous. She’d looked at models on runways and thought, “I’d never want that to be me.” Yet here she was, in that very situation. It was particularly odd, because she knew she hadn’t really done anything - it had been her mother who had defeated the great Dark Lord. She was just some ordinary witch.

But not to these people, she wasn’t. To these people, she was the Girl Who Lived. War ender.

“Welcome back, Ms Potter,” said the bartender, Tom, still very emotional. “Welcome back.” It was quite a welcome.

Then there was a great scraping of chairs; people rushed forward from unseen corners; shouts filled the air; crowds of people moved forward just to grasp her hand, shake it, introduce themselves. They were nervous, elated, beaming. They said things like, “Can’t believe I’m meeting you at last,” or “I’ve always wanted to shake your hand.” They giggled when she looked at them. Full grown adults. The man in the violet top hat bowed over her hand and kissed it. Unironically.

Atropa felt like she was swimming through a sea of eager people. Doris Crockford just kept coming back for more handshakes. She got in line and waited again, behind everyone else, over and over. Atropa attempted to smile, to laugh, to greet and act confident, to see the humor in it all. In reality, she was eleven years old and quite overwhelmed.

A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously, from the front of the line. One of his eyes was twitching.

“Professor Quirrell!” said Hagrid. “Atropa, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts.”

Atropa had already catalogued two professors in her mind. Flitwick led the arts clubs. And she wanted to do well in Potions because of her family history, so she was interested in whoever the Potions professor was. Then, obviously, there were Dumbledore and McGonagall. But who was this Quirrell?

“M-Miss P-P-Potter,” stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Atropa’s hand, “c-can’t t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you. You’re a very p-pretty young girl, if I may, and I’m sure you’re v-very talented.”

Atropa smiled uncomfortably, all too aware that in reality she had no special powers at all. She resolved in that moment to learn every bit of magic she could. She wanted to deserve the faith all these people had in her abilities. Every time she came across a piece of magic, she would learn it.

“I’ll just do my best, Professor, and I’m sure I’ll get along just fine,” said Atropa. Hey, it had worked at Enterprise. She’d gotten good grades there.

“H-how humble,” Quirrell commented.

“What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?” Atropa asked him, polite but also genuinely curious. He was a bit of a nervous wreck; what on earth could he be teaching?

“D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts,” said Quirrell, as though he’d rather not think about it.

Atropa’s first honest to God thought: You’ve got to be shitting me.

“N-not that you n-need it, eh, M-Miss Potter?” Quirrell laughed nervously. “You’ll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I’ve g-got to pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself.” He looked terrified at the very thought.

Atropa resolved to try her best under him. Hopefully he had a… stronger constitution than it appeared, she thought, exasperated.

But the others wouldn’t let Professor Quirrell keep Atropa to himself, and he was pushed aside in place of more eager fans. After several more minutes of increasingly exhausting shouting crowds, and with no end in sight, Mrs Figg at last snapped at Hagrid, “Rubeus Hagrid, you get her out of this mess right now! You’re big! Do something with it!”

Hagrid himself was even starting to look a little exasperated. “Must get on!” he shouted. “Lots ter buy! Come on, Atropa.”

He acted as her massive bulwark against the crowds, pushing her through like a bodyguard past Doris Crockford, past the bar, and out the back door of the pub. Here there was a walled-in red brick courtyard, with a rubbish bin and a few weeds. “What do you do with rubbish here?” she wondered aloud, puzzled.

“It’s Vanished at the end of every day,” said Mrs Figg. “We try to keep all our natural land as clean as possible. Magic is very connected to nature, you know. Our ancestors the Druids thought so. Hogwarts is built on ancient Celtic ground, in the highlands of Scotland.”

“Thank you for getting me out of there, Hagrid,” said Atropa, looking up at Hagrid. “I should hire you whenever I go out in public here.”

“I’d be glad to help anytime, Miss Atropa,” said Hagrid, black eyes glittering kindly as he smiled behind his thick black beard.

“What on earth were you thinking, though, getting her all caught up in a crowd like that?” Mrs Figg scolded. “Atropa’s not an extroverted person; the poor girl clearly had no idea what to do!” Hagrid scratched the side of his head sheepishly. “Are you okay, dear?” said Mrs Figg, turning to Atropa.

“I’m fine, Mrs Figg,” said Atropa. “Is Professor Quirrell always like that?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Hagrid sympathetically. “Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin’ outta books, but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience. They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o’ trouble with a hag. Never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject.”

Atropa then had her next question: “Where do we go from here? In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no road anywhere.” She waved around the small, walled courtyard.

Hagrid winked. “None that you can see,” he said, and took out his pink umbrella, counting bricks in the wall above the bin. “Three up - two across - right, stand back.” He tapped the correct brick three times with the point of his umbrella - or, really, his wand.

The whole brick wall started shaking. Bricks at the touch point started wriggling. The bricks moved back and moved back, the hole in the center growing bigger and bigger, until they were facing an archway larger even than Hagrid, an archway onto a cobblestone street lined with old fashioned lamp posts and colorful little shop buildings. It twisted and turned out of sight. Countless witches and wizards in colorful robes and pointed hats with various fashions and designs smiled and chattered cheerfully, walking the streets.

“Welcome,” said Hagrid, “to Diagon Alley.” 

He and Mrs Figg smiled at Atropa’s wide-eyed amazement. They stepped through the archway. Atropa looked quickly over her shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

Here she was, fully immersed in another world, set to go to Hogwarts. There was no turning back now. Instead of frightening her, this filled her with excitement.

They walked along the cobblestone street. “How do you fit all this without anyone noticing?” Atropa asked.

“It’s called an Undetectable Expansion charm,” said Mrs Figg. “Heavily regulated by the Ministry. It can make space inside no space.”

Atropa wished she had about eight more eyes as they walked up the street. She was trying to look at everything at once, turning her head in every direction - the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. 

They passed by a shop with a sign saying Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self Stirring - Collapsible. The sun gleamed on the stack of cauldrons below the sign. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they’re mad…” She took out a coin purse and began rifling through a stack of real gold, silver, and bronze coins.

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several young boys had their noses pressed against a window with racing brooms in it. “Look,” Atropa heard one of them say, “the new Nimbus Two Thousand… fastest ever…” 

“They like racing brooms for their favorite sport. Quidditch. It’s a flying sport.” Atropa looked around at Mrs Figg, who tapped her on the shoulder and pointed this way and that. “There are the entrances to other Alleys… there… and there…” More ancient cobblestone streets, along with some dark lantern lit alleyways. Each carried a different wood sign post announcing what Alley it was. This seemed to be a whole interconnecting network of roads.

“It’s like its own city,” Atropa whispered. 

“It is a city, essentially,” said Mrs Figg. “There are flats and grocer’s and clothing shops. People live here. Everything’s based in the Alleys - theaters and music halls, even the Daily Prophet. There are all sorts of methods of magical transportation to get here from outside homes, because here is where it’s all at. Here, and Hogwarts.”

Atropa suddenly pointed. “Ooh, what’s that?!” Lots of whirring silver instruments emitting steam stood in one shop window.

“They detect and monitor wards,” said Mrs Figg. 

“Like… shield wards?” said Atropa, ridiculously excited.

“Yes,” Mrs Figg smiled, “like that.”

There were shops selling robes, shops selling barrels of bat spleens and eels eyes and fantastical magical herbs, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…

“Gringotts,” said Hagrid.

They had reached a towering white marble building with magnificent front steps and grecian columns. Gringotts Bank. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold and carrying a pike, his stance perfectly straight and still and his face carved stone, was -

“Yeah, that’s a goblin,” said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the steps toward him.

“They’re very vicious, but have also evolved to become very clever,” said Mrs Figg quietly. “A dangerous combination. Don’t deal with them unless you absolutely have to, and never trust them.”

“And yet we trust them with our money?” Atropa murmured.

Hagrid chuckled darkly. “Get back to me in a couple of years of wizarding history lessons and then tell me: would you steal from or attack a goblin?”

The goblin was very small, with a clever, pointed, dark-skinned face and, Atropa noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside, his expression never giving off whether he’d heard them speaking or not. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take but do not earn

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours, 

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.

“They mean it, too,” said Mrs Figg. “They’ll kill you. They’ve killed countless wizards in uprisings.”

“Like I said, yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it,” said Hagrid quietly.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter that cut the hall in half, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. They flaunted their wealth. They were practically daring someone to try and steal from them. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these.

Atropa, Mrs Figg, and Hagrid made for the counter.

“Morning,” said Hagrid to a free goblin.

Mrs Figg held herself up stiffly, obviously attempting to hide her nerves. “Miss Atropa Potter wishes to make a withdrawal,” she said, and took out a small, intricately carved golden key, handing it to the goblin. The goblin examined it carefully. 

“That seems to be in order.” He handed the key down the long counter to Atropa, who pocketed it equally carefully.

“An’ I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore,” said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault 713.”

The goblin read the letter.

“Very well,” he said, handing it back to Hagrid. “I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!”

Griphook was yet another goblin. Mrs Figg, Hagrid, and Atropa followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall. “The goblins take you down to your vault,” explained Mrs Figg. “They like to brag about the fact that the necessary money is always there.”

“What’s the You-Know-What in vault 713?” Atropa asked Hagrid.

“Can’t tell yeh that,” said Hagrid mysteriously. “Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore’s trusted me. More’n my job’s worth, ter tell yeh that.”

Griphook held the door open for them. Atropa, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. When they said underground, apparently they meant it. The path sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a mining cart came hurdling up the tracks toward them.

“Mining,” said Atropa in surprise, before she could stop herself.

Griphook gave her a curious look. “We mine for our own metals and jewels,” he said at last. “Then we make tools and weapons out of them. The finest in the world.”

They climbed into the cart - Hagrid with some difficulty, squishing an irritated Mrs Figg - and were off. 

At first, they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn’t steering. The air became colder and Atropa’s eyes stung, but she kept them wide open. She found the ride exhilarating, trying to remember and memorize their original route, noticing everything around her. Once, she thought she saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake full of stalactites and stalagmites.

The cart stopped at last outside a small door in the passage wall - vault 687. Hagrid, who apparently got motion sickness, got out first and had to lean against the passage wall to stop his knees from trembling. He looked very green. Mrs Figg, perfectly fine and exasperated, patted him reluctantly on the arm. Atropa supposed she had a stronger constitution when it came to speed than most people - it was why she was so fascinated by the idea of racing brooms.

Griphook unlocked the door with the golden key and a lot of green smoke came billowing out. “What is that?” Atropa asked immediately.

Griphook gave a sharp-toothed, sinister grin. “Poisonous toxic gas,” he said. “Harmless to those who belong, deadly to those who don’t.”

Atropa looked around - and gasped. Inside the vault for miles, it seemed, was mountains, columns, heaps of gold, silver, and bronze coins. “All yours,” smiled Hagrid, Mrs Figg beaming beside him. All Atropa’s - it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn’t have known about this, or they’d have had it from her faster than blinking. She had a whole fortune. She was rich.

Hagrid and Mrs Figg helped Atropa pile some of it into a bag. “The gold coins are Galleons. Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine bronze Knuts to a Sickle.”

Hagrid requested the other vault. “Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?”

“One speed only,” said Griphook.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled around tight corners. They went rattling tentatively over a dark underground ravine. At last, vault 713.

It had no keyhole.

“Stand back,” said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door with one of his long fingers, and it simply melted away. “If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they’d be sucked through the door and trapped in there.”

“How often do you check to see if anyone’s inside?” Atropa asked.

Griphook gave another sharp-toothed smile. “About once every ten years.”

“And wizards can’t magic themselves food or money,” Mrs Figg commented. “Even assuming they did manage to stay alive, they’d go insane from isolation.”

At first, it looked like vault 713 was empty. But then Atropa noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. That seemed to be what he was doing - emptying the vault on behalf of Dumbledore. Atropa longed to know what was in the package, but knew better than to ask.

“Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don’t talk to me on the way back, it’s best if I keep me mouth shut,” said Hagrid.

-

One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. “Might as well get yer uniform,” said Hagrid, nodding to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, a tiny specialty high end clothing shop. “Listen, would yeh mind if l slipped off fer a pick me up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts.”

“I’ll take her,” said Mrs Figg, and they parted ways with Hagrid, Mrs Figg steering Atropa into the robe shop.

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve. She hurried forward. “Hogwarts, dear?” she asked kindly.

“Yes, ma’am, but first I’d like to take a look around. Buy some casual wear robes,” said Atropa.

“Oh, you’re new!” said Madam Malkin, delighted. “Very well, I’ll walk you through the place.”

Mrs Figg, Madam Malkin, and Atropa had a good time, giggling and picking out Atropa’s new outfits. Atropa chose the grand ball gown style robes, the beautiful dresses with the corsets over them. She put her hair up into a fancy black bun, her robe emerald green like her eyes and her corset black, and with her dangling earrings, fanciful colored makeup, and a brand new pointed hat, she looked just like a real witch.

“Looking good, dear,” said the mirror Atropa was looking into suddenly, and Atropa jumped.

Atropa bought several sets of witch outfits, and then she was taken into the back with some Hogwarts uniform robes and cloaks - plain, baggy, and deep black - and stood on one footstool among an entire row. A robe was slipped over her head, and began being pinned to the right length - personally fitted by Madam Malkin herself, who might have been a kind person but might also have smelled money.

The boy about Atropa’s age - also being fitted into Hogwarts robes beside her - glanced sideways and sneered. He had a pale, pointed face and white blond hair. “Muggleborn, are you?” he asked. “Here with that Squib? Do you even have the money to pay for all that?”

Atropa glared silently at him.

“Who are you with?” he asked.

“Hagrid,” she growled out.

“Ha! The drunken dropout? Why are you with them, where are your parents?”

“Dead,” said Atropa shortly, anger rising up inside her chest.

The boy didn’t apologize. “All that shopping, you know it won’t make any difference,” he said. “You’re still dirty. You still don’t belong here.” There it was. He’d hit the sensitive point she’d been worrying about all along.

A Purebloodist, then. Lovely. Atropa got suddenly off the stool. “If you’re interested in my name,” she said simply and coldly, for she was feeling vindictive and her feelings were rather hurt, “it’s Atropa Potter.”

The fitting witches gasped. It was worth it. The boy’s grey eyes widened, his face flushed, he opened his mouth in horror and it hung there.

“But thank you,” said Atropa frigidly, “for explaining your opinion of people like my mother so fully.” She turned to Madam Malkin primly. “I would like to request a different footstool,” she said primly, her chin lifted but fire blazing inside her chest.

And she walked away from the boy, leaving him standing there with his mouth fallen open in horror. Atropa smiled.

“Is everything alright, dear?” Mrs Figg asked, hurrying forward.

“Oh, yes,” said Atropa with satisfaction, “I just rendered a horrible little boy speechless. Everything’s just fine.”

“Oh. Well, good Lord, dear, let’s hope you’re not in the same school house as him,” said Mrs Figg worriedly.

Atropa felt victorious. She paid for her baggy black Hogwarts uniform and corset gown casual wear robes, and ghosted out of the shop smoothly in one of her new outfits, looking like about as much as she was worth - a millionaire. They met Hagrid outside and continued shopping like nothing had happened.

But inside, she was still bothered. What if he was right? What if she didn’t belong here?


	5. Chapter 5

They bought Atropa’s books in a bookshop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with all sorts of fascinating things Atropa had never seen in a bookshop before. She was ecstatic; she was in love; she was asking questions.

“Why are those books so big but those books so small?” she asked, pointing. There was a book as large as a paving stone bound in leather stacked right next to a book the size of a postage stamp covered in silk.

“That’s just a really big book,” said Mrs Figg, pointing at the leather one. “But the silk book is for fairies. Well, technically all magical creatures could be labeled as fairies. But there is a specific type of fairy we call ‘fairies,’ a type that all other civilizations, as far as we know, think died out long ago with the advent of modernism. They only live in wizarding places now, which tend to be larger, filled with magic, and more nature driven. But they do still exist. They’re like little rainbow colored fireflies to all outward appearances, but in actuality they are very tiny, delicate people. They were the forerunners of many magical creatures today.”

“What about those? And ooh, why are those empty?” Atropa was going down the rows, fascinated, pointing and asking questions. She pointed first at a row of books full of peculiar symbols, then at a row of books with apparently nothing in them at all.

“The first are ancient runes. The second are written in invisible ink in some cases, written so only certain magical beings can read them in other cases,” said Mrs Figg patiently.

Atropa suddenly turned around. “I need books,” she said, deadly serious. “Extra books. Not just my texts.”

Some people might have gone in the nonfiction section for the books on wizarding culture and history. But Atropa thought it best if she adapted to wizarding culture through personal experience over time, as nerve rattling as that sounded, and she was going to be learning wizarding history alongside magical subjects at Hogwarts anyway. So she went for the books about magic itself - magical theory, curses and hexes, defensive spells, transfiguration, potions, charms (the art of changing the properties of people and objects). She started reading a book of magical theory in the bookshop, and it basically explained magic as a very active kinesthetic energy inside the body which could be used to manipulate matter. Magic could also, in desperate cases, run out and have to be replenished - usually only in extraordinary circumstances for aboveground witches and wizards.

This confirmed her suspicions. Magic was a physical power. It had to be largely intuitive, which was why she was such a non-logical person. She had too much magic, not enough Muggle.

Hagrid protested the buying of all these books. “She won’t be able to do any o’ them spells yet anyway,” he complained.

“Yes, but she’s curious, Hagrid. She wants to know how it all works,” said Mrs Figg sternly. “We’re indulging her curiosity.”

Atropa also went to the fiction section. She bought a number of classical wizarding fairy tales and romances, then headed to the music section and bought an about equal number of wizarding records. She found everything from pop stars to rock bands and even some darker music by a handsome half vampire singer called Lorcan d’Eath - all of it completely original and wizarding. She also bought a magic-working radio hooked up to the WWN (Wizarding Wireless Network) and a magic-working record player.

Then there were her textbooks themselves: The Standard Book of Spells (Grade One), A History of Magic, Magical Theory, A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, Magical Drafts and Potions, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Dark Forces (A Guide to Self Protection). All in easy English for anyone to read. She would read through them entirely before school started, she decided, though all the psychology books at least in the Muggle world said the point was to learn, not to memorize - so she didn’t see what point entire memorization would be.

They bought quills, parchment, and ink. Mrs Figg recommended a scroll organizer for notes, and Atropa also bought an eagle feather quill and every color of ink she could find - including an ink that changed color as you wrote, and a type of invisible ink.

“Why -?” Hagrid would begin, exasperated.

“Oh, let her enjoy herself, Hagrid,” said Mrs Figg in fond amusement.

Atropa also bought fresh art materials here, a magic-working camera, and a book on various charms one could use to make their photographs and art pieces come to life.

So after that, she had new books, new clothes, new art materials, and new music. She felt prepared for her life as a witch.

They went to get a cauldron next, and Atropa went immediately for solid gold. Hagrid finally put his foot down here. “Its says pewter on yer list,” he said flatly. Atropa crossed her arms and glared, about to remind him it was her money, when Mrs Figg put a soothing hand on her arm.

“Gold is gaudy,” she murmured. “Copper, however, is technically allowed by Hogwarts, very high end, excellent working, and much classier. The collapsible copper cauldrons -” She pointed. “Are over there.”

And Atropa was appeased. That was her first lesson in having money - using it to indicate class and usefulness instead of pure wealth.

They also got a set of collapsible brass scales for weighing potion ingredients, and a collapsible brass telescope for astronomy - studying the movements of the stars and planets was considered a magic related class. Wizards and witches had theorized that the movements of the stars and planets affected magical energies, and without the right space configuration magic might disappear altogether.

Next they visited the Apothecary, which smelled like bad eggs and rotted cabbages but had so many fascinating things to look at that Atropa didn’t mind too much. She pointed at everything and asked what it was: from the barrels of slimy stuff standing on the floor, to the jars of herbs and dried roots and bright powders lining the walls, to the bundles of feathers and strings of fangs and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. Silver unicorn horns were twenty-one Galleons each. Minuscule, glittery black beetle eyes were five Knuts per scoop.

“I take it there is no animal rights movement here,” Atropa noted, amused.

“Actually, there is, but it’s very recent. For centuries wizards and witches just assumed if they made animal lives happy and liveable and kept replenishing the supply through nature conservation, everything was fine and would work itself out. That’s why toads used to be popular as pets - their parts could be used in potions. Recent animal rights movement activists have decided to take up the mantel of teaching witches and wizards how to kill and use animals humanely,” said Mrs Figg.

Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Atropa’s list again. “Just yer wand and pet left, as yer not allowed a personal broomstick yet.” He looked at Mrs Figg, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. “She’ll also be needin’ birthday presents.”

“Oh, you don’t have to -” Atropa began, surprised.

“I know I don’ have to,” said Hagrid gruffly, and he left it at that. “Tell yeh what - I’ll get yer animal.”

“And I’ll get her wand,” Mrs Figg finished warmly. “Oh, don’t worry, Atropa dear,” she said when Atropa made to protest. “I’ve secretly always wanted to buy a wand. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

She was trying to smooth it over, but Atropa was still uncertain. She’d gotten along perfectly well without huge summer birthday celebrations before, and she had much more money than an expelled groundskeeper and a little old Squib widow did. She didn’t mean that in a condescending way; it was just the truth.

But Hagrid and Mrs Figg wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“You can treat us for ice cream and dinner at a cafe here in the Alleys afterward and we’ll call it even,” said Mrs Figg, ushering her forward. “Now, pet. Owl, cat, or toad?”

“Do you really need to ask?” said Atropa, smirking. “After all these years at your house, of course it will be a cat.”

Mrs Figg beamed. “I hoped you would say that!”

“Cats make me sneeze,” Hagrid muttered rebelliously.

“Then for heaven’s sake, give me the money and I’ll go in with her,” scolded Mrs Figg, exasperated. They’d stopped in front of a building called the Magical Menagerie.

“But an owl would be more useful!” Hagrid protested. “They carry your mail and everythin’.”

“We both know Hogwarts has plenty of school owls,” said Mrs Figg. “And either she’ll be writing to wizarding friends, who will have a home owl over the summer, or she’ll be communicating with Muggleborn friends, who know how to pick up a telephone over the summer. She’ll only need a house owl when she’s grown and living on her own.”

So Mrs Figg and Atropa entered the Magical Menagerie, essentially a pet store for wizards. Atropa was curious.

There wasn’t much room inside. Every inch of wall was hidden by cages. It was smelly and very noisy because the inhabitants of the cages were all squeaking, squawking, jabbering, or hissing. The owls here could find strangers all over the world, travel at high speeds, and understand human language and geography. Atropa supposed she should have expected for the other animals to be unusual too.

There was a glass case of double ended newts on one wall. A pair of enormous purple toads sat gulping wetly and feasting on dead blowflies. A gigantic tortoise with a jewel encrusted shell was glittering near the window. Poisonous orange snails were oozing slowly up the side of their glass tank, and a fat white rabbit kept changing into a silk top hat and back again with a loud popping sound. There were cats of every color, a noisy cage of ravens, a basket of funny custard-colored furballs that were humming loudly, and on the counter, a vast cage of sleek black rats that were playing some sort of skipping game with their long bald tails.

Atropa remembered that owls had their own shop, but basically everything else seemed to be here.

The clerk was helping someone else, so Atropa walked along one wall, looking at the cats on display. Her favorite kind of beauty was the dignified, lovely, unique kind. If she’d been at Eeylops, she knew she’d have chosen a snowy owl, and maybe she would have a snowy owl someday. But for now she wanted a cat, and she knew what kind she wanted: a Siamese.

There were a few Siamese slinking in a corner, and when she walked over to them, most of them jumped down to greet her, meowing. Only one remained on the shelf high above, perched, staring down at her with remarkable blue eyes. She smiled and looked up at it.

“Will you not come down for me?” she asked, holding out her arms.

The Siamese cat tilted its head and examined her for a moment, then leaped down into her grasp, apparently deeming her worthy. Atropa clutched the warm cat, smiling down at it and petting it as it purred.

“Yes,” she said, “this one, I think.” It had a kind of innate magnificence to it. It knew it was special and made any potential owner work for it. She admired that.

“That’s Toke,” said the clerk, who had helped the last customer and was now watching Atropa. “She’s fairly young. If you keep her healthy and she stays indoors, especially as she was bred with magic like all the animals in here, I’d say you could get a good twenty or twenty-five years out of her.”

“Hello, Toke,” Atropa cooed. She turned around and beamed. “Get me a cat carrying case. I’ll take her.”

-

At last, only one thing was left: a magic wand. Atropa had saved this for the end, because she’d been looking forward to it the most.

The last shop on Diagon Alley was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 BC. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

“So they’ve been here since Roman times,” said Atropa curiously.

“Yup. Same family. Still doin’ the same thing all these centuries later,” Hagrid agreed cheerfully. “Only place fer wands, Ollivanders - and yeh gotta have the best wand.”

“Wands are where all the powerful magic stems from. Truly powerful magic must be stemmed through a wand in order to have an effect,” said Mrs Figg. “Ollivander has a monopoly on the British wizarding market, but not through bullying tactics - he’s just that good. None of the rest can compare.”

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single spindly waiting chair and a clerk’s desk. Behind the desk, thousands of narrow boxes were piled neatly right up to the ceiling. A strange hush fell over everyone the instant they entered Ollivanders, and Atropa thought she knew why: even she could sense the magic in this place. Her neck prickled like she was going through Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response herself. Anyone who knew anything remotely about magic would have been blown away by the sheer power emanating from this one single shop.

“Good afternoon,” said a soft voice. Atropa jumped and then cursed herself. She wasn’t the only one. Hagrid, who had been sitting on the spindly waiting chair, quickly stood up as he heard a nasty crunch emanate from below him.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

“Mr Ollivander,” said Atropa, attempting to lift her head and take charge. “I’d like a wand.”

“Ah, yes,” said the man. “Yes, yes. I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Atropa Potter.” It wasn’t a question. “You have your mother’s eyes: the same almond shape, same bright green. You look much like her, in fact. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work.”

Mr Ollivander moved closer, unblinkingly, to Atropa, who was a little bit creeped out. “How do you remember that far back?” she asked, frowning and taken aback.

“Mind magic,” said Mr Ollivander vaguely. “Useful for mind blocking and reading, for memory expansion and language learning. For all sorts of things.”

He continued as if she had not interrupted him.

“Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power, and excellent for Transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it - the wand chooses the witch or wizard, of course.”

“You don’t sell mahogany,” said Mrs Figg, sounding puzzled. “Does he?” She turned to look at Hagrid.

“No, indeed I do not. James Potter favored flying and Quidditch, and racing brooms are made with mahogany. He brought in broom wood and asked me to work with that,” said Mr Ollivander. “Not the recommended method, but he was talented and it worked for him. And that’s where…”

Mr Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Atropa’s forehead with a long, white finger.

“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,” he said softly. “Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands… well if I’d known what that wand was going out into the world to do…”

He shook his head and then, to Atropa’s relief, spotted Hagrid.

“Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again… Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn’t it?”

“It was, sir, yes,” said Hagrid.

“Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?” said Mr Ollivander, suddenly stern.

“Er - yes, they did, yes,” said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. “I’ve still got the pieces, though,” he added brightly.

“But you don’t use them?” said Mr Ollivander sharply.

“Oh, no, sir,” said Hagrid quickly. Atropa noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke. 

“Hmm,” said Mr Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. Hagrid had better hope, Atropa thought, that Mr Ollivander wasn’t a mind reader.

“And Arabella Figg,” said Mr Ollivander at last in a flat tone, turning to Mrs Figg. “A Squib. Yes?” There was the slightest bit of contempt in his voice. Mrs Figg reddened.

“I think Mrs Figg is one of the most brilliant women I’ve ever met,” said Atropa frigidly. “And did I not make myself clear, Mr Ollivander? I am a customer. I would like a wand.” Her tone was short and to the point.

“Yes, yes, of course. Come forward,” said Mr Ollivander, and right as Atropa stepped forward there was a loud explosion from the back of the shop. They all shouted and ducked their heads, Toke screeched from her cat carrying case, but Ollivander paused them from panicking. “No, wait, wait!” He sounded excited. “You don’t understand. That has to be a vine wood wand. Only they call to their future owners before being handed to them. And with those sparks - that’s a phoenix tail feather core!”

Mr Ollivander looked delighted, and hurried to the back of the shop.

“You must have gotten close enough to it - ah, yes, here it is!” Mr Ollivander paused, and all went silent. “I see… how curious… how very curious…” they heard him murmur.

Still with that indefinable expression, he came out into the forefront of the shop and handed Atropa the wand. “Your wand wants you,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

Atropa took the wand. She felt a sudden warmth in her fingers. She raised the wand above her head, and for some reason, though she’d expected to, with the right wand in her hand she did not look or feel foolish at all. She brought the wand swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on the walls. Red and gold sparks - like phoenix flame, she would assume.

Hagrid whooped and clapped, Mrs Figg was applauding furiously with proud tears in her eyes, and Mr Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh very good. I would never have picked that one; I’d forgotten all about it. If it hadn’t called out to you, we might have had to go through half the store first!”

“You said only vine wood does this?” Atropa asked curiously.

“The druids considered anything with a woody stem as a tree, and vine makes wands of such a special nature that I have been happy to continue their ancient tradition,” explained Ollivander. “Vine wands are among the less common types, and I have been intrigued to notice that their owners are nearly always those witches or wizards who seek a greater purpose, who have a vision beyond the ordinary and who frequently astound those who think they know them best. Vine wands seem strongly attracted by personalities with hidden depths, and I have found them more sensitive than any other when it comes to instantly detecting a prospective match. Hence, when you came close enough to it, it called to you. They do that sometimes, when the match is particularly powerful.”

“And the sparks come from a phoenix feather?”

“Every Ollivander wand has the core of a powerful magical substance, Miss Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. 

“Phoenix feathers are the rarest core type. Phoenix feathers are capable of the greatest range of magic, though they may take longer than either unicorn or dragon cores to reveal this. They show the most initiative, sometimes acting of their own accord, a quality that many witches and wizards dislike.

“Phoenix feather wands are always the pickiest when it comes to potential owners, for the creature from which they are taken is one of the most independent and detached in the world. These wands are the hardest to tame and to personalise, and their allegiance is usually hard won.

“So altogether, between vine wood and phoenix feather, and with the way it called to you, your wand is quite unusual indeed,” said Mr Ollivander. “It is a mystical and powerful wand, Miss Potter, not for the faint of heart. It’s hard enough to get the two separately; to get them together is almost unheard of.

“On another interesting note, the other two qualities of a wand are length and consistency. Yours is eleven inches, with a very hard consistency - indicating a very stubborn but elegant person.”

“But… you hinted my wand was unique in another way…” said Atropa slowly. “You called it curious, said you’d never have expected it and almost forgotten about it, and you went very quiet when you found it had called to me.”

Mr Ollivander fixed Atropa with his pale stare.

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Miss Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather resides in your wand gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother, or mate wand - why, it gave you that scar on your forehead.”

Atropa went very cold for a moment. 

“Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the witch, remember. It is not always clear why. But I think it is clear that we must expect great things from you, Miss Potter. After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things. Terrible, yes, but great.”

Atropa swallowed. “Some people might find that comforting, Mr Ollivander,” she said. “I’m a little more focused on the fact that I have the sister wand of the wand that killed my parents.”

Mr Ollivander looked at her for a long moment. “You strike me as a very sensible young woman, Miss Potter,” he said. “So I’m going to explain this to you as sensibly as I can. Muggles used to burn us at the stake because they believed our powers were Satanic. They were half right. Our powers are what you might call divine, and Satan was once an angel. This means he can do everything an angel can, and an angel can do anything the Devil can. The angels just choose not to.

“Do you see what I mean, Miss Potter?”

Atropa became more serious again. “Yes, Mr Ollivander,” she said, determination to be the right kind of angel filling her. “Yes, I believe I do.”

-

As promised, Mrs Figg, Hagrid, and Atropa bought ice cream and lunch in Diagon after the wand shop, Atropa’s newly paid for, wrapped wand box set beside her. 

“You alright, Atropa? Yeh’ve been askin’ us things all day and all of a sudden yer very quiet,” Hagrid commented in concern.

“I… I don’t know if I can explain,” said Atropa, pained. “I… I’m happy. I’ve never been happy before. I mean, I thought I had been, but now I think I can’t have been. It felt nothing like this. For the first time, I belong somewhere. And it’s a beautiful place. And that’s wonderful. This has been one of the best days of my life. Certainly the best birthday of my life.”

“But?” said Mrs Figg, frowning in concern.

“The boy at the robe shop told me it doesn’t matter what I buy here - I’m never going to fit in,” said Atropa. “And I just keep thinking… what if my best isn’t enough this time? What if I’ve gone without this world for too long?

“No, let me finish,” she said when they tried to speak. “Everyone thinks I’m special. All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr Ollivander… People were lining up to shake my hand. Ollivander compared me to some powerful angel. Quirrell didn’t think I’d even need his class.

“But don’t you see? It was my Mum. I didn’t do anything. I have no special powers. I’m not some amazing witch, I’m just… me. And what if that’s not enough? They expect great things from me, and I don’t even really remember the night that I’m famous for.”

She realized her eyes stung and she looked away, going quiet.

“First, Atropa,” said Mrs Figg, gently and worriedly, “you said you can already do magic without a wand, yes? Well that ranks you among the very best even of Pureblood witches before they get to Hogwarts. And you do remember - the important things,” she added awkwardly.

But it was Hagrid who really helped. He leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.

“Don’ you worry, Atropa. You’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you’ll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it’s hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, and that’s always hard. It’s lonely, innit? Bein’ all by yerself up there where no one can reach yeh. 

“But all the same… yeh’ll have a great time at Hogwarts. I did. Still do, ‘smatter of fact.”

“Remember this feeling, Atropa,” said Mrs Figg. “Because all the exceptional people feel it.”

They drove her back to the Dursleys’ house with Toke and her boxes, and got her things set up in her upstairs bedroom, the Dursleys disapprovingly downstairs. Her witch things now mingled among her instruments, her art supplies, her makeup and tattoo art and clothes and jewelry, her books, her scribbled bits of writing. Her cauldron went near the board on her wall, carrying paint balloon art. It was all a mess, an explosion of color and chaos, and Atropa loved it. She loved the way it looked, with Toke curled up by the bedroom window and her wand lying new on her bed, her usual chocolate sweets on her bedside table.

She took a photo of that one moment - not for artistic reasons, but for purely sentimental ones. Hagrid and Mrs Figg were standing in it, organizing her new wizarding materials.

At the end, Hagrid handed Atropa an envelope. “Yer ticket fer Hogwarts,” he said.

“I’ll get you there on the day of, dear, don’t you worry about a thing,” said Mrs Figg. “I’ll drive you up there myself. We’ll leave early in the morning of September the first, to be at King’s Cross train station in London by 11 AM. There’s a hidden magical platform there, carrying a train that will take you to Hogwarts and its accompanying wizarding village, Hogsmeade.”

“Any problems with the Dursleys, you just get to Mrs Figg and she’ll send me an owl,” added Hagrid protectively. “See yeh soon, Atropa.”

"See you at Hogwarts, Hagrid," said Atropa.

And he and Mrs Figg left the bedroom. By the time she looked down from the window, they were both gone. But Mrs Figg was nearby, she knew - right down the road. And she took comfort from it.

She sat down on her bed and stared around herself. She sighed. “Now comes the rest of my life,” she whispered, and flopped down on her bed, listening to her aunt and uncle watch a game show on television downstairs.

Then there was a knock on the door, and Dudley came in. “Mum and Dad won’t admit it, but they’re curious too,” he said, grinning. “What did you buy?”

Atropa sat up, and smiled.


	6. Chapter 6

Atropa spent most of the rest of her summer deeply submerged in magic.

She read through all her books, asked Mrs Figg countless questions, and even tried out spells and potions at Mrs Figg’s house. It turned out she could do magic in Muggle places; she just couldn’t make it too strong.

“After this summer, practicing magic around Muggles places as a minor will be illegal, so get as far as you can now,” said Mrs Figg with mild amusement.

Atropa discovered a love for magic. She studied its theory and its inner workings, and practiced channeling her own energies through her wand to form results in the world around her. There were three steps to practicing a spell: proper wand movements, words spoken properly, and energy channeling. The phoenix feather struggled with her every step of the way, so it was a good thing she’d started early. As her wand magic expanded, so did her wandless magic and her dreamseeing abilities. Sometimes she was wondering how to figure out a spell, and would receive the answer in her dreams.

She pored through complex books and texts, practiced writing with a quill, ink, and parchment, and brewed potions using her Apothecary ingredients in Mrs Figg’s fireplace, finding it a lot like the science of cooking - with some additional wand waving. She also took a conscientious effort to bond with Toke, playing with her and petting her.

Every day she made a tick on a piece of parchment she had pinned to her bedroom wall, counting down to September the first.

On the morning of, she got up very early and pulled on some Muggle clothes, brushing her hair. She didn’t want to walk into King’s Cross in her witch’s robes; she’d change on the train. She checked her Hogwarts supplies list yet again to make sure she had everything she needed, saw that Toke was shut safely away in her carrying case, and then pulled her case downstairs in the cool, silent morning air and out to the curb.

Mrs Figg was waiting with her car.

“Get in, we’re off on a great adventure!” she puffed, as they heaved Atropa’s trunk into the back of the car and slammed it shut.

They drove up to London, chattering excitedly, and reached King’s Cross Station at half past ten. Together, they dumped Atropa’s trunk into a cart, wheeled it into the station. Mrs Figg just kept on going, finally stopping just before the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

“Through there,” she said, pointing, “is platform nine and three quarters. You walk straight through the barrier and onto the platform. But you have to be certain you won’t crash into the barrier, or it won’t work. You have to know the platform is there - wizarding or Muggle. Best to just slip through.”

Uncertainly, Atropa walked up to the barrier with her cart. She glanced around, then leaned carefully through the barrier, picturing a platform - and she stumbled, her cart coming after her. She looked around, and her eyes widened in amazement.

She was suddenly on a secret train platform. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock. Atropa looked behind her and saw a wrought iron archway where the barrier had been with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. She had made it.

Mrs Figg burst through the barrier, smiling, and said, “Very good! So. What do you think?” She smiled knowingly. Atropa was still looking around herself in wonder.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. The very front carriages all carried chattering older students with shiny silver P badges on their chests - P for Prefect. Atropa and Mrs Figg pushed the cart off down the platform. Young boys in billowing black Hogwarts robes were racing each other down the train corridor. “Scuse me! Out of the way!” They pushed past people. A round-faced boy they passed in a compartment was saying, “Gran, I’ve lost my toad again.”

“Oh, Neville,” the old woman sighed.

An older black boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd in the center of the train. “Give us a look, Lee, go on.” The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

“Mrs Figg! Can I -?” Atropa at last turned around in enormous excitement.

“You have half an hour. Go on. I’ll wait,” said Mrs Figg, standing with the cart in patient amusement.

Atropa hurried up into the train and to the crowd around the giant tarantula crawling all over Lee. “Can I try?” she asked, excited, holding out her arms.

Lee paused, and then laughed. “I like you, first year. Here, have a try.”

There were gasps and murmurs. “She’s not really going to -?” But Atropa did. She giggled as the tickling giant tarantula crawled all over, and several girls shrieked, the rest of the students gasping in awe.

Just then, the rowdy racing boys pushed past her toward the end of the corridor. She looked after them in excitement.

“Go on,” said Lee, taking the tarantula back and winking. “You’re not really a cool first year until you've irritated the shit out of everybody else on the Hogwarts Express.”

Atropa ran after the boys in delight, charging right up to them and demanding, “I want to join.”

They looked her up and down. “You’re a girl.”

“Should be an easy win for you, then,” she said, a challenge in her eye.

They grinned. “Alright. Let’s try it! One - two - TH -!” But Atropa, mercilessly cheating, had already charged down the corridor as the boys shouted after her. They raced her for the end, but no one could match Atropa when it came to speed. She was a tiny little lightning bolt. She made it to the other end seconds before anybody else did. 

“HA!” she shouted, flushed with victory.

“That’s cheating!” one of the boys protested.

“That,” said Atropa primly, tossing her head, “is called strategy. I’ll race you again without the head start if you want. Just to prove a point.”

They just kept racing. Atropa won every time. “Oi!” A red-haired prefect stuck his head out of a frontal compartment as they charged and thundered past him once more like a herd of elephants. “Stop that -!” But they were already gone.

At last, Atropa, breathless and flushed with happiness, hurried back to Mrs Figg. “Ready?” she asked, smiling, eyebrows raised.

“Yes!” said Atropa happily. They found her an empty compartment, got her trunk and cat carrying case inside the compartment, and Atropa looked around. There was a lamp in the corner, so the train must run all day to get to Hogwarts. Judging from Hagrid’s comments, it was also probably faster than a Muggle train.

Atropa shut the compartment curtains, changed into her baggy black Hogwarts robes and cloak, and then opened the curtains again and leaped down onto the platform to say goodbye to Mrs Figg. “Well, look at you,” said Mrs Figg, her eyes misty, and they gave each other a hug.

“Thank you, Mrs Figg,” said Atropa, standing backwards. “I’ll write to you every week. I promise. And to my Enterprise friends.”

“Do well in school,” said Mrs Figg. “Practice and study hard.”

Atropa smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” A whistle sounded. 

“Time to go!” said Mrs Figg, and Atropa clambered into her compartment, shutting the door and leaning out the window. 

“Wish me luck!” she called over the train.

“I wish you all the best.” Mrs Figg smiled. “But I don’t think you need it.”

The train began to move. Atropa waved to Mrs Figg, who stood still on the platform and waved back. The platform fell further and further behind, the train gathering speed. Then Mrs Figg disappeared as the train rounded a corner.

Houses flashed past the window. Atropa felt a great leap of excitement, sitting back in her seat. She didn’t know exactly what she was going to. But she already knew she wouldn’t change it - not for the world.

The train bore her on towards Hogwarts.


	7. Chapter 7

A redheaded boy with freckles slid open the compartment door. He wasn’t wearing his uniform yet. Atropa looked around in surprise. “Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Atropa. “Everywhere else is full.”

Atropa shook her head and the boy sat down. He seemed awkward, embarrassed, and uncomfortable, fidgeting and trying not to glance at her for two long. Atropa wondered with humor if it was because she was a girl. Mrs Figg had said children from wizarding families were homeschooled until eleven years old. He might not have interacted with many girls his age before.

She leaned forward, smiling and holding out her hand. “Hi,” she said, dryly amused. “I’m Atropa Potter.”

The redheaded boy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Really. Got the scar to prove it.” She lifted her bangs to show her forehead. The boy stared. 

“So that’s where You Know Who -?”

“Yes,” said Atropa awkwardly.

“... What did he look like?”

Atropa was surprised. “What? You don’t have any photographs of him in history books?”

“Well, he wasn’t exactly photogenic, was he?” said the redheaded boy, exasperated. “He was hardly fond of the camera. And who would willingly photograph a genocidal terrorist bent on killing everybody?”

Atropa supposed he had a point. “I, er - don’t remember. I don’t remember what he looked like. I remember how he sounded. He had this high, hysterical… chilling sort of sound to him. He sounded like he was insane. It made a shiver go up your spine, not the good kind. It’s - it’s hard to explain.”

“Wow.” The boy stared at Atropa, and he was still staring when two older twin boys who looked like him slid open the compartment door.

“Hey, Ron. Listen, we’re going down the middle of the train - Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” mumbled Ron.

“See you later, then.” They slid the compartment door shut and left.

“My older brothers,” he muttered, shrugging apologetically. “They, er - they were supposed to look after me.” He seemed embarrassed.

“So that’s your name? Ron?” Atropa asked.

“Ron Weasley,” said the boy, nodding. 

“Are all your family wizards and witches?” Atropa was interested to really talk for the first time to someone her age who was obviously from an all magical family.

“Er - yes, I think so,” said Ron. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.”

Atropa frowned. “You have a thing against Squibs?” she asked, considering Mrs Figg.

“Well - no - we - er -” Ron was blushing very fiercely. He looked around and then leaned closer. “There’s nothing wrong with people without magic, exactly,” he said. “My Dad even studies them. But if you have people like that in your family, you know… you don’t really talk about them.”

“I think that’s ridiculous. I’ve known plenty of wonderful people without an ounce of magic,” said Atropa firmly, thinking not only of Mrs Figg but about Susie and Rachel and the Harbings - not to mention all the other people she had known at Enterprise. Even her aunt and her cousin had their merits. “And wizards never become accountants? Who manages your money, then?”

“Well the goblins do that,” said Ron, staring as though this should be obvious.

“No wonder they’ve tried to uprise so many times. Without them, your entire society would fall apart,” said Atropa. “Haven’t you ever wondered if they’re, you know - keeping extra money? I’ve heard about goblins.”

Ron had sat back in his seat, rolling his eyes and looking away rebelliously. There was an awkward silence.

“Anyway,” said Atropa compassionately, trying to move past this. “You must know loads of magic already. Being in a family of all wizards.”

Ron dodged the subject. “I heard you went to live with Muggles. What are they like?”

Atropa smiled. “Us,” she said. “With machines, Rationalism, and no magic.”

“Rationalism?” Ron wrinkled his nose. “What’s that?”

And so Atropa started talking philosophical history, and she was excited but by two minutes in Ron had obviously completely zoned out. “You’re lucky,” she said at last. “Growing up in a wizarding family. I wish I had.”

Ron jerked back to consciousness. “It’s not as good as it sounds,” he insisted, becoming gloomy. “I have five older brothers and a younger sister. I’m the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I’ve got a lot to live up to.”

Atropa frowned. “Well shouldn’t that be a challenge?” she said. “You could do something really incredible!”

“But you don’t understand,” said Ron. “There’s no point. It’s all already been done. Bill and Charlie have already left - Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy’s a Prefect. The twins Fred and George, they mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they’re really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first.”

“Just because those things have already been done, doesn’t mean they’re not worth doing,” said Atropa. “It’s still good to shoot for those things - good grades, for example, or people liking you. And it’s never all already been done. I refuse to believe that. And I’d still rather have had a wizarding family, even with all that baggage. It’s worth it, Ron. Trust me.”

“Yeah, well…” Ron still seemed depressed. “You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I’ve got Bill’s old robes, Charlie’s old wand, and Percy’s old rat.” Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat grey rat, which was asleep. “His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless. He hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my Dad for being made a Prefect, but they couldn’t aff - I mean, I got Scabbers instead.”

Ron’s ears went pink. He seemed to think he’d said too much, because he took to staring out the window and he wouldn’t look her in the eye.

“I suspect you care more about Scabbers than you’ll admit,” said Atropa in amusement at last, “which is why I’m not letting out my cat to roam the compartment.” Indeed, at this idea Ron did look genuinely alarmed. So Ron liked to complain, but he cared more than he’d admit. “Do you want to know a secret?” She leaned forward mischievously. “I didn’t have access to my fortune as a kid. And my aunt and uncle were very strict with me. They would never buy me anything, and I wore ratty, grey, secondhand dresses. Even when they sent me off to boarding school, they never sent me any money. I had to use the school fund. 

“I think it’s really brave of your family to try to pay their way with their own money instead.”

This seemed to cheer Ron up. 

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, “Anything off the trolley, dears?”

Atropa, who hadn’t had any breakfast, leaped to her feet, but Ron’s ears went pink again and he muttered that he’d brought sandwiches. Atropa went out into the corridor - and here she discovered that wizarding treats were nothing like Muggle treats, and to her utter delight, they never seemed to end. She asked constant questions, the woman patiently explaining to her what different things were.

First, there was ice cold pumpkin juice by the bottle. “Halloween is our most powerful magical holiday,” said the woman. “We can make anything out of pumpkins.”

Then there were jelly slugs, sugar quills, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum (which blew bluebell-colored bubbles that didn’t burst for days), peppermint toads, Fizzing Whizzbees (which were little sherbet balls that made you buzz and float a few inches above your seat), licorice wands, Iced Mice (which made your teeth chatter), cauldron cakes, cockroach clusters, blood flavored popsicles (for the vampires, of course), pumpkin pasties, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, and Chocolate Frogs.

“Where do you get all this?” Atropa asked in amazement.

“From Honeydukes,” said the woman proudly. “Best sweets shop in wizarding Britain, and it’s right in Hogsmeade.”

Atropa was beside herself with excitement.

She left the blood flavored popsicles alone, but bought two of everything else: one for herself and one for Ron. She paid with her own money, and brought it all back into the compartment, tipping it onto an empty seat. “One of everything for each of us,” she said proudly.

“Oh, you didn’t have to -” Ron was turning red.

Atropa took a page out of Hagrid’s book. “I know I didn’t have to,” she said, hands on her hips. “Take the damn candy.”

But Ron wouldn’t budge.

“Fine, I’ll swap you a sandwich for a piece of candy. Pick one,” said Atropa aggressively, skeleton earrings rattling with her fervency. 

“Oh, you don’t want this, it’s all -”

“Ron Weasley, if you do not eat a piece of candy, I will shove it down your throat!” Atropa was laughing. “I absolutely insist that everyone around me have as much fun as possible!” She pointed firmly at the pile of candy. “Eat! Come on, I’ve never had anything to share with other people before, you’ll be doing me a favor.”

“... Okay,” said Ron at last, and they sat and ate their way through the pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten). 

“What are these?” Atropa asked Ron, holding up a Chocolate Frog. “They’re not really frogs, are they?” She was starting to feel that nothing would surprise her.

“No,” said Ron. “But see what the card is. I’m missing Agrippa.”

“What?”

“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know. Chocolate Frogs have famous witch and wizard cards inside them, you know, to collect. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”

Atropa smiled. “So you like collecting trading cards,” she said. “What else?”

“Well, I like comics,” said Ron, chewing. “Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle. And I love wizard’s chess. It’s just like regular chess, except the players come to life and you have to order them around, and they lop each other’s heads off. The heads come back on,” he assured her, misinterpreting her alarmed expression. “And I love Quidditch. Best sport in the world.”

Atropa was unwrapping her Chocolate Frog with a bemused expression. It was indeed just chocolate shaped like a frog, but the card below it was interesting. There was a moving photo of a man’s face. He wore half moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

She turned the card around to the back and read:

Albus Dumbledore

Currently Headmaster of Hogwarts

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

“No, I’ve got Morgana again and I’ve got about six of her,” Ron was commenting, looking at his own card.

“So Morgana and Merlin were real people?” said Atropa curiously.

“Real as the Druids,” said Ron, shrugging and nodding. “They were a famous medieval witch and wizard. Merlin fought for the Light. Morgana was a Dark witch. Violence versus good magic, you know, the usual.”

“So, it says here Dumbledore is an alchemist…” said Atropa. “Is alchemy real too? I mean, the part about endless gold and eternal life?”

“Supposedly,” said Ron. “But it doesn’t happen in wizarding discovery all that often. Only a Philosopher’s Stone can guarantee eternal life and real money, and they hardly ever happen.”

Atropa went for the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans next. “You want to be careful with those,” Ron warned her. “When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor - you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he got a bogey-flavored one once.”

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.

“Bleeargh - see? Sprouts.”

They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. Atropa got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end of a funny grey one Ron wouldn’t even touch, which turned out to be pepper.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills. Atropa couldn’t see a home for miles. Hogwarts really was out in the middle of nowhere. She wondered if they purposefully created enchantments to keep Muggle modernizing away.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy Atropa had passed on the platform came in. He looked tearful.

“Sorry,” he said, “but have you seen a toad at all?” When they both shook their heads, he wailed, “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting away from me!”

“It’s Neville, right?” said Atropa kindly. “Let me try something, Neville.” She stood and put a hand on his head; Neville looked very confused. But she was feeling for his energies. 

Suddenly, a girl with bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth came in.

“Wha -?” she began.

“Ssh,” said Atropa. “I’m sensing for magic.”

The girl gasped. “Are you really?” she said in excitement, right before Ron shushed her. Atropa felt around…

“Oh, Neville.” She smiled. “He’s clinging to the back of your shoe.”

Neville and the girl were both already wearing Hogwarts robes. Neville lifted his robe. “Trevor!” he cried blissfully, reaching down to pick the toad up off his shoe. “I was wondering why that shoe felt so funny. Thanks!” he said, looking up at her, tears disappearing.

“That was incredible!” said the bushy-haired girl. “How did you do that? I mean, I’ve been practicing some wand based spells, but -”

“Yes, so have I, but that’s wandless magic. More specifically magic sensing,” said Atropa. “I find being able to sense magic helps in completing it.”

“Oh, of course!” the girl cried, as though this should have occurred to her all along. “Finally, someone with some sense! What extra books have you read for background reading? Just this summer, I read Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century! Oh, that’s assuming you’re a Muggleborn, like I am, of course,” she added frowning. “I’ve learned all the course books by heart, have you?”

“No, I haven’t, so you’ve got one up on me as well. I specialized more in magical theory over the summer, the mechanics of magic, you know,” said Atropa. “And I’m - sort of a Muggleborn? I’m Atropa Potter.”

Neville’s eyes had become very big. He seemed a little intimidated.

The girl gasped. “Are you really? I know all about you, of course -”

“Yeah. From the books, I’m sure.” Atropa smiled.

“You don’t know? Oh, I’d have found out everything I could if it was me!” Hermione exclaimed. 

“I like both - reading and experience - but I prefer experience. However, if you know everything about me, it’s a good thing we’re friends.” Atropa smiled. The girl paused, then blushed and beamed, delighted. Ron looked dreading, but Atropa rather liked the idea of having this girl as a friend. She had a brilliant, earnest, awkward, take-charge sort of manner to her. She was eccentric, but Atropa was okay with eccentric as long as it didn’t insult or screw with her. And the girl seemed nice - in her own way. “You were the only one helping Neville find his toad, weren’t you?” she noted.

“Well, goodness, someone had to do something,” said the girl in a matter of fact sort of fashion. “Do any of you know what house you’ll be in? I’ve been asking around, and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad…” She, like Susie, was a chatterer. Excellent.

“What is the difference between the houses?” Atropa asked around.

Ron began to answer, but was overridden by the new girl and seemed very irritated about it. “That’s right, you wouldn’t have read Hogwarts, A History. Houses are separated by personality traits. Gryffindor is for the brave, Ravenclaw is for the intelligent, Slytherin is for the cunning and ambitious, while Hufflepuff is for the kind. It doesn’t say in the book how we’re Sorted, though, I expect it’s some sort of spell-related test.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense, not enough of us know magic yet.” Atropa frowned. “I know there are mind readers here, maybe it has something to do with that.”

“Really?” said the girl, fascinated.

“Yes. People use mind magic to block and read minds, and to create perfect memory or learn a vast number of languages. And that would come in -”

“Very handy!” they said together, and began giggling to themselves. Ron looked nauseated. Neville continued to look intimidated.

“But really, I’d think the house of the intelligent would be the one for you,” said Atropa thoughtfully. “What with your ability to memorize vast numbers of books and all. And you’re already practicing spells, like me.”

The girl suddenly seemed shy. She looked down. “I don’t want to go into the house of the nerds…” she muttered.

Atropa was sympathetic. “I think we’d be happiest with our own kind. I’m a firm believer in just letting this mysterious Sorting test decide for itself. However it’s done, it must be a set system; you’d think it would know. I refuse to choose when it comes to my house,” she declared.

The girl looked thoughtful. “You know,” she said, “perhaps I’m with you there.”

"Since you read about Hogwarts, do you know if the enchantments around it repel Muggles?" Atropa asked.

"Oh, yes!" said the girl excitedly. "They certainly do! That's their chief function! To Muggles, Hogwarts just looks like a broken down shack sitting out in the middle of nowhere! If -"

"If they can repel the magic long enough to concentrate on it," said Atropa thoughtfully, nodding. "And the closer you get to it, the farther away it must appear."

"Yes, exactly!" said the girl, surprised but pleased. "And no method of magical transportation is allowed through the school, either. Hence the train."

“What’s your name, by the way? I never got it,” said Atropa. 

“Oh!” The girl gasped, brightening. “I’m Hermione Granger. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard, and I’m determined to do quite well.”

“Me, too,” Atropa admitted. “Everyone expects me to do well, and I’m determined to - so their faith in me won’t be misplaced.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” said Hermione. “Trying to come into such an insulated society - it’s a lot to live up to. But I think we can do it,” she added confidently.

Atropa smiled. “I agree.” She turned to Ron excitedly. “Can they sit with us?” She pointed at Hermione and Neville.

Ron had suddenly stood up. “Look,” he said, “I’m not - I mean, no offense, but I have to go.” He hurried to the compartment door.

“Ron!” Atropa called, distraught.

Ron Weasley was stuffing Scabbers back in his pocket. “I’m not interested in a couple of know it all girls,” he said rudely. “Whatever house I’m in, I hope you two aren’t in it.” And he left. Atropa stared after him, genuinely upset.

She was finally old enough. It marked the first time in her life a boy had ever rejected her for being too take-charge and intelligent.

“Well!” huffed Hermione. “How utterly horrible!”

“If you don’t want to be in a house with him, you’d better not be in Gryffindor,” Neville finally spoke up solemnly. “I’m a Pureblood - not that it matters - but I just know that the Weasleys are this really poor family, and they’re on the Light side, but they’re super Pureblooded and they’ve all been in Gryffindor house for about five generations.”

“Oh,” said Hermione, looking disappointed.

“... If I end up a Gryffindor, I do,” said Atropa neutrally, but deep down she was still upset. 

“Gryffindor isn’t as great as people make it out to be,” Neville insisted. “Everyone expects Gryffindors to be loud and obnoxious and reckless, there’s all this pressure put on them… It’s awful, really. I’m hoping to be in Hufflepuff. They may be looked down on as the nice guys, but at least none of them are bullies. I’m Neville Longbottom, by the way,” he added informatively. He was still clutching Trevor the toad.

“Hmph. He was completely ill prepared anyway. He had a dirty face and wasn’t even wearing his uniform,” said Hermione disapprovingly.

“He didn’t seem too dedicated to doing well at Hogwarts, either,” Atropa admitted. “He said it’s all already been done.”

“Well that’s not the right kind of attitude to have at all!” said Hermione, shocked.

“Especially at a school like Hogwarts. It’s one of the top three schools of magic in all of wizarding Europe,” said Neville. “The other two -”

“I’ve read about them. Beauxbatons in France and Durmstrang in the Eastern bloc,” Hermione agreed thoughtfully. “And Hogwarts is supposed to completely measure up to them. Well, obviously, it’s been an institution for over a thousand years.”

Atropa finally felt comfortable. Perhaps, she thought, she was better off with Hermione and Neville than she had been with Ron Weasley and his brothers. “You want to share the rest of my sweets with me?” she finally offered, waving. And so they sat down and began snacking together. Hermione and Atropa chattered on about spells, Atropa with her sharp eye and fast reflexes occasionally catching Trevor the toad in another bid for freedom. Neville, who was enjoying the sweets, thanked her gratefully every time.

“He was my gift for getting into Hogwarts,” said Neville. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.”

Suddenly, the compartment door slid open. “So let me get this straight.” It was the pale blond boy from Diagon Alley, the one from the robe shop. He was flanked on either side by two gigantic boys who looked like bodyguards but were obviously students he’d gotten to follow him around. “So far, Potter, your friends here are a Squib, that great oaf Hagrid, a Weasley, a Mudblood, and the laughingstock of Pureblood younger society?”

Great. Ron had talked.

Neville flushed but said fiercely, “You take that back about Hermione! That’s a dirty word!”

The pale blond boy sneered. “I’m not taking back anything,” he said. “Would you like to say it to Crabbe and Goyle, Longbottom?”

Crabbe and Goyle, apparently the two goons, cracked their knuckles and scowled. Neville’s courage failed him and he fell silent.

“Ron Weasley isn’t my friend,” said Atropa heatedly. “But why do you care? Because they have the presumptuousness to be poor and study Muggles? There’s nothing wrong with Muggles. Hagrid is a staff member. Mrs Figg is a poor little old widow - who married a full wizard, I might add. And Neville and Hermione are far better conversation than you were at the robe shop, despite being a dirty person and a laughingstock.”

The pale blond boy flushed. “... I might have given you the wrong idea at the shop,” he admitted. “But you’re doing this all wrong, Potter. These aren’t the right kinds of friends and appearances to be making.”

“Oh, and you have better?”

“I certainly do. You hang around with riff-raff, and it’ll rub off onto you. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.” He held out his hand. Atropa examined him coolly.

“You’ve forgotten one important detail,” she said at last.

The boy scowled. “And that is?”

“In all your perfect planning, you’ve forgotten to tell me your name.” The boy paused, his eyes widening in realization.

“It’s Draco Malfoy,” he said slowly at last. He did have a certain fashion to him, a kind of drawl.

“Well, Draco Malfoy,” said Atropa. “I’ll be your friend - if you lower yourself to sitting down with a Muggleborn and Neville Longbottom, because they’re already my friends and it would be rather rude of me to abandon them or ask them to leave.”

Neville and Hermione smiled at her.

“Admirable loyalty - though misplaced,” Malfoy sneered, and in that moment he appeared very nasty indeed. 

“I think we’re done here, Draco Malfoy,” said Atropa. “It’s nothing personal, but you and I have very different ideas of what constitutes a good friend.”

Malfoy smirked. “But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys?” he drawled, leaning against the compartment door. “We’ve finished all our food and you still seem to have some.”

Atropa scowled and stood in a feat of wandless magic. She sent the three boys flying with shouts out of the compartment, slamming the door in another feat of wandless magic behind them. “And stay out!” she called, as Neville smiled and Hermione giggled. She sat down beside them and smiled, wiggling her eyebrows. They heard Malfoy and his friends, apparently frightened, scamper away.

“You’re the only thing renewing my faith in wizarding boys, Neville, let’s make that very clear,” said Atropa.

Neville blushed and seemed very pleased.

“Malfoy is from a very rich and powerful Pureblood family,” he added, frowning. “But they were once suspected of Death Eater activity. Death Eaters - followers of You Know Who.”

“How pleasant,” said Atropa flatly.

The train seemed to be slowing down. Hermione noted this, and all three of them began preparing themselves, straightening their black Hogwarts robes. Atropa checked on Toke while Neville stuck Trevor in his pocket. “Ooh, a cat!” said Hermione in delight, standing on the compartment seat to smile at Toke. “I’ve always wanted one, you know, I’m completely and utterly a cat person.”

Atropa smiled at her. “Yes, I think we’ll get along just fine,” she said.

A voice echoed, magically magnified, through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Atropa was nervous. Hermione seemed on edge herself; she was talking even faster than usual, and Neville looked white as a sheet. They crammed their pockets with the last of their sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out onto a tiny, dark platform. Atropa pulled her cloak and pointed hat closer around her in the cold night air. Everyone seemed to be going toward the distant lights of what had to be Hogsmeade village, and Atropa was about to follow them, when a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students and Atropa heard a familiar voice:

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years, over here! Alright there, Atropa?” Hagrid’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. Atropa brightened and waved back.

“That’s Hagrid,” she whispered to Neville and Hermione. “He’s okay.”

“C’mon, follow me - any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!” 

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid the other way off the platform, alone, down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side that Atropa thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much - everyone was too terrified of what lay before them.

“Yeh’ll get yer first sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud, “Ooooh!”

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. 

“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Atropa, Hermione, and Neville all clambered into a boat together, and were followed by a girl with dull gold hair and green eyes.

“Daphne Greengrass,” she whispered, holding out her hand. They all shook it and introduced themselves. Daphne’s eyes widened a little when she heard Atropa’s name, but she recovered quickly and she kept her thoughts to herself. Atropa was grateful.

“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. “Right then - FORWARD!” 

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood. 

“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Your toad is escaping,” said Daphne Greengrass suddenly, pointing at the bottom of the boat.

“Oh! Thank you,” said Neville, reaching down to pick up Trevor again. “This is Daphne. She’s a Pureblood too, but she’s always been nice to me.” He smiled.

“It’s not you I’m worried about, Neville, not when it comes to Pureblood boys,” said Daphne fervently.

“Draco Malfoy tried to take her away from our compartment,” said Neville, nodding to Atropa.

“Well, yeah,” said Daphne, “that’s because Draco Malfoy is a massive prick.” She didn’t seem to care who heard her either. The others snickered. Daphne had that sort of funny, opinionated, star quality. “Look, I treat everyone equally. If you’re a cool, bitch-ass woman, we’ll get along just fine.”

Hermione’s eyes were wide. “I’ve never seen anyone use that kind of language before,” she whispered.

Daphne smirked. “Yeah. My Dad calls me manneristically challenged.” Atropa laughed, a rare occasion.

She, Daphne, Hermione, and Neville all clambered with the other first years up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid’s lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. 

“Everyone here?”

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.


	8. Chapter 8

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald green robes stood there. She had an icy face carved with stern, strict, serious lines. This had to be Professor McGonagall.

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door open wide. The entrance hall was so big it could easily have fit two nicely sized houses. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors. A table off to the side carried four huge hourglasses: one filled with red rubies, one with green emeralds, one with blue sapphires, and one with yellow topaz stones. All of the stones were at the top of each hourglass; no change had been made, no time had passed.

“That must be the points counter,” Hermione whispered. “Each house gets points based on achievements. I read about it.”

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Atropa could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right - the rest of the school must already be here - but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start of term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. 

“The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn you points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.

“I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly.” She left the chamber. 

There was a terrified silence in her wake. No one wanted to be chosen for a house in front of the entire student body. It seemed this would decide their entire school fate, and the choice would be made in front of everyone. Just then, several people behind Atropa screamed. She whirled around.

About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance -”

“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost - I say, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and hose had suddenly noticed the first years.

Atropa was fascinated and determined not to be afraid. She walked right up to them and said, “We’re the new first years. I must say, you’re all very lovely looking.”

The ghosts smiled, seeming flattered.

“Is it hard, being a ghost?” she wondered aloud.

“What a charming, peculiar little girl,” said the ghost with the ruff in amusement. “Well, it is rather disappointing, no longer being able to eat and enjoy food. We don’t need to, you know, but one does miss it.”

“Can only wizards and witches become ghosts?”

“Yes. Our magic leaves an imprint of our bodies and souls behind - in certain circumstances,” said the Fat Friar evasively.

“You all don’t seem very violent,” Atropa noted.

“That’s poltergeists like Peeves, spirits of pure mischief and violence, not ghosts like us,” said the ghost in the ruff, suddenly irritated, and he whirled around to the Fat Friar. “And I insist that it’s time for us to kick our poltergeist out -!”

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony is about to start.”

“Hope to see you all in Hufflepuff!” The Fat Friar waved merrily. “My old house, you know.” And one by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” Professor McGonagall told the first years, “and follow me.”

Feeling nervous, hoping they weren’t about to be tested, Atropa got into line behind a boy with sandy hair. Daphne and Hermione were behind her, Neville was behind them. They walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall. 

Atropa had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in mid air over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Atropa looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. Hermione whispered to her, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about that, too.”

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open onto the heavens.

Atropa quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a patched, frayed pointed wizard’s hat. Everyone was staring at the hat, so Atropa stared at it too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat began to sing:

“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,

But don’t judge on what you see.

I’ll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There’s nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can’t see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart.

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart.

You might belong in Hufflepuff, 

Where they are just and loyal.

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil.

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

If you’ve a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning

Will always find their kind.

Or perhaps in Slytherin,

You’ll make your real friends.

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don’t be afraid!

And don’t get in a flap!

You’re in safe hands (though I have none),

For I’m a Thinking Cap!”

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“See?” Atropa whispered to Hermione. “Mind reading.”

“How interesting,” said Hermione, fascinated.

“It’s scary, too, because your house decides everything,” Daphne muttered frankly. “Whether you’re bullied, whether you’re feared, which other houses hate and share a rivalry with yours - everything. The whole social system of Hogwarts is built on the house system. And there is no perfect house where everyone likes you. Hufflepuffs are bullied. Slytherins are feared. Gryffindor and Slytherin hate each other. Gryffindors think Ravenclaws are weirdos. Slytherins think Hufflepuffs are pathetic. And Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff hate each other, because Ravenclaws are always looking down on Hufflepuffs.”

“Sounds like piranhas in a fish tank eating each other. That is rather a lot to remember,” Atropa muttered. “Doesn’t it ever get tiring?”

Daphne looked at Atropa, with her alien makeup, skeleton earrings, and curious, confident expression. She chuckled. “I like you, Atropa,” she said. “Nah. You get used to it.”

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. “When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be Sorted,” she said. “Abbott, Hannah!”

A pink faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment’s pause -

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.

So the hat didn’t announce your personality traits to everyone. That was a relief. The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Atropa saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

“Bones, Susan!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!” 

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them. 

“Brocklehurst, Mandy,” went to Ravenclaw too, but “Brown, Lavender,” became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers. Atropa could see Ron’s twin brothers cat-calling. “Bulstrode, Millicent,” then became a Slytherin, joining the table second to the right. So the two center tables were Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

They watched as more and more people were Sorted. Sometimes, Atropa noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. “Finnigan, Seamus,” the sandy-haired boy next to Atropa in line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

“Granger, Hermione!”

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head. 

“RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat. Atropa smiled and applauded alongside the Ravenclaw table. Hermione looked rather pleased with herself as she went to sit down. She’d followed her instincts after all.

“Greengrass, Daphne!”

Daphne walked forward confidently, a hard, determined look in her eye. She sat on the stool, the hat slid over her eyes… “SLYTHERIN!” the hat shouted, and Daphne went to sit down at the Slytherin table.

Poor, nervous Neville fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, “GRYFFINDOR,” a petrified Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to “MacDougal, Morag.”

Atropa tried to give Neville a comforting look on his way to the table. It was okay. If Neville truly was a Gryffindor, they couldn’t be all bad. But Neville looked horrified. He must have been arguing with the hat.

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called. The hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, “SLYTHERIN!” Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking rather pleased with himself. 

If one assumed Ron went into Gryffindor like the rest of his family - and there was no reason to feel he wouldn’t - that accounted for just about everybody else. There weren’t many people left now.

“Moon”... “Nott”... “Parkinson”... then a pair of twin girls, “Patil” and “Patil”... then “Perks, Sally-Anne”... and then, at last -

“Potter, Atropa!”

As Atropa stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the Great Hall. “Potter, did she say?” “The Atropa Potter?”

The last thing Atropa saw before the hat dropped over her eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at her. Next second she was looking at the black inside of the hat. She waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in her ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. You are brave, yes, I can see that, and self confident. But not a Gryffindor. You use your boldness in tandem with your strategic mind and your keen eye for people, and you use it in a most unconventional, eccentric way. Eccentric, yet edgy. You’re determined to do well, extremely creative, and very intelligent. You’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. And you do have kindness, yes, but you are most certainly not a Hufflepuff. You’re much colder and more esoteric.

“So here is my quandary… Ravenclaw? Or Slytherin? Intelligence and creativity, or cunning and ambition?”

And the hat sat there, wondering to itself, for several increasingly nerve rattling minutes, until finally it was jerked off her head. McGonagall was holding a gold pocket watch hanging next to her handkerchief. “Atropa Potter is a Hatstall!” she called to the Great Hall, and the buzz of excited chatter got louder.

“Does that mean I have to leave?” Atropa asked, looking up at McGonagall with big, afraid eyes. 

“No, Miss Potter. Come with me.” Atropa followed her up to the High Table, where they approached Dumbledore in his big gold chair, whose silver beard was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts.

“Well, Miss Potter,” said Dumbledore kindly, “how unusual you are. You’ve been caught evenly between two houses, and are in the unique position of getting to choose your house. Hat, what are the choices?”

“Ravenclaw and Slytherin, sir,” said the Hat seriously.

Dumbledore sobered. “Interesting…” he murmured. “Well, Miss Potter.” He turned to her. “What do you decide?”

Atropa paused, looked at Daphne and then at Hermione, and crossed her arms. “I exercise my right not to choose,” she said firmly. Dumbledore stared at her.

“Miss Potter, you must!” said McGonagall, flabbergasted.

“Why?” Atropa responded honestly.

“Because -!” But Dumbledore had held up a hand, giving Atropa a piercing look over the top of his half moon spectacles. 

“If she refuses to choose… she must be Sorted into both houses,” he said quietly at last.

“But Albus, how?” said McGonagall. “It’s never been done before!”

“I have an idea. New times call for new measures.” Dumbledore stood, and shouted to the whole hall, “Atropa Potter refuses to choose between her two houses! Therefore, she is both a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin from this point forward!”

There was absolute bedlam. Atropa winced as people stood, started shouting and exclaiming. Very confused applause came from the two house tables in question. 

“Head prefects for each house, please come and see me!” Dumbledore shouted, and sat down again.

A girl in a silver and green Slytherin tie, and a boy in a blue and bronze Ravenclaw tie, walked up confused to the High Table. The girl had ear piercings, tattoos, and dark eye makeup. The boy was big and buff like a Quidditch player, with neatly shorn hair above the ears and much preppier looking.

“Atropa, this is Robert and Gemma. Robert and Gemma, this is Atropa Potter,” said Dumbledore. “And your head teachers are Professor Flitwick of Charms for Ravenclaw, and Professor Snape of Potions for Slytherin. Now. This has never been done before, so we’ll have to play it by ear, but this is what I propose. 

“Atropa splits her meal time evenly between the two houses. She spends dinner with Ravenclaw, and dessert with Slytherin. Then Gemma shows her the Slytherin commons, before passing her off to Robert, who will show her the Ravenclaw commons. She will sleep in the Ravenclaw commons and take classes with Ravenclaw for one half of the week, then her things will be moved to Slytherin for the second half of the week.

“Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said the prefects seriously.

“Very well.” The hall had calmed down. “Atropa Potter will spend the first half of the feast with Ravenclaw, the second half with Slytherin!” Dumbledore announced, to many whispers. “Welcome to Hogwarts, Miss Potter.” He nodded to her, blue eyes sparkling in amusement. “You certainly entered with a bang.”

Atropa sighed. Great.


	9. Chapter 9

Everyone still seemed confused as Atropa made her way through the Great Hall to her spot at the Ravenclaw table. People on both sides stood up to shake hands with her, glaring competitively at each other. She shook hands on either side of the aisle, making her way down, before collapsing with relief into a seat next to Hermione.

“Don’t worry, Atropa,” said Hermione matter of factly. “Being a part of two houses should be an absolutely fascinating experience.”

“I hope so,” Atropa muttered. She looked down the table and saw the ghost of a tall lady in a lovely medieval dress sitting, reserved and silent, further down. 

“That’s the Grey Lady, our house ghost,” said Hermione. “I’ve already asked. And that over there? That’s your other house ghost, the Bloody Baron. He’s the Slytherin ghost.” 

A gaunt, blood-stained man in chains was sitting next to Malfoy, who, Atropa was pleased to see, did not seem too pleased with the seating arrangements. Daphne caught Atropa’s eye and winked, patting the spot next to her she’d saved for Atropa at the table.

Atropa could see the High Table properly now. Hagrid sat at one end; he caught her eye and he looked worried, but he smiled and winked at her nevertheless. And then of course there was Dumbledore, and McGonagall, and Quirrell sat at the High Table looking very peculiar in a large purple turban. Atropa wondered who among the unfamiliar number were Snape and Flitwick.

And now there were only three people left to be Sorted. Sure enough, Ron Weasley was made a Gryffindor, and he looked very relieved as he collapsed in a seat next to his brothers. A few other people were sorted, and then McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Atropa laughed and clapped along with them. Then she looked down, and gasped in delight.

The dishes in front of them, empty a few seconds ago, were suddenly piled with food. Lots of good, hearty meat, potatoes, sauces, and vegetables. Nothing complex or fancy, just good, wholesome, filling food. Atropa took some steak and potatoes and began to eat. It was all genuinely delicious.

The Ravenclaw first years were all going around introducing themselves.

“Anthony Goldstein.” One boy grinned. “Jew and Half-blood. I’m doubly marked.”

“Michael Corner,” said a boy with a dark, quiet, brooding sort of glamor to him.

“Terry Boot,” said a boy with bronze hair. “Hoping to join Quidditch.”

“Padma Patil,” said an Indian girl, “and my twin sister is in Gryffindor,” while a little Chinese girl introduced herself as, “Sue Li.”

“Mandy Brocklehurst,” said a girl with messy hair, horn rimmed spectacles, and a better than you sort of voice. “I intend to be the best student here.”

“And my name is Lisa Turpin,” said a girl with a very shy, soft voice. She said nothing more.

Everyone turned eagerly to the remaining two. “I’m Hermione Granger. I’m a Muggleborn but I hope to do quite well here,” she said eagerly.

“We’re already friends,” said Atropa, putting Hermione under her direct protection. “I guess you all know, but I’m Atropa Potter.”

“You won’t be sorry you decided to be with us,” said the Prefect, Robert Hilliard, from down the table. He leaned forward eagerly. “We’re the best house here.”

Atropa smiled uneasily, skeptical of any house being ‘the best one there.’

“So. Where are Snape and Flitwick?” Atropa asked. 

“That’s Snape over there.” Robert pointed to a quiet man with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin. “And that’s Flitwick.” Robert pointed to a tiny little pointy-faced old man who was beaming and chatting. “He’d our head of house. Charms professor. He’s a really kind person. If you’re ever in a real state and you go to his office, he’ll take out this little tin of cupcakes and make them dance for you. In fact, sometimes it’s worth pretending to be in a real state, just to see them jive.

“You’re lucky in your other head of house, too, though, Atropa.” Robert grinned. “Snape may seem merciless to most, but he favors Slytherins. Members of his own house get preferential treatment - he behaves toward them less horribly than toward the rest of the student body.”

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. “That’s my cue,” said Atropa, and she hopped over to sit with Daphne at the Slytherin table.

“Finally!” Daphne burst out, and Atropa giggled.

“Well I’m here now,” she said. Hermione looked after them longingly.

“This is going to get really irritating,” said Daphne in annoyance.

“We should just make our own house. Figure out a way to Conjure a fourth table or something,” said Atropa.

“I’m with you. Rebel against the system!” Daphne pounded the table.

“I like your attitude, kid.” Gemma grinned. “But remember, you’re a Slytherin now. We snakes look after our own. So that means no blood purist talk.” She glared fiercely down the table, and Malfoy scowled back at her.

The minute Gemma had turned away, Malfoy went for it. “You know, Potter, you had one easy choice. All you had to do was turn down the complete bunch of know it all wankers that is Ravenclaw house.”

Atropa glared at him. “At least I was cool enough to get a choice, Malfoy. I didn’t see the hat thinking you were smart enough to be considered for Ravenclaw.”

“Don’t talk that way to him!” hissed a hard-faced girl sitting next to him at the table - Pansy Parkinson, Atropa thought her name was. Her hand was protectively and possessively on his arm.

“Actually,” said Daphne boldly, “I think what she did is kind of cool.”

“So do I,” Millicent Bulstrode, a naturally large girl, admitted while shrugging. 

“Kiss ass,” Malfoy spat at Daphne. 

Daphne stood. “Say that again?!”

Then Millicent Bulstrode stood up. “Actually, yeah, Malfoy, you want to say that one more time?” she asked darkly. Crabbe and Goyle made to stand, and Millicent glared thunderously at them. “I could kick both of your asses, and you know it.” Crabbe and Goyle slowly sat down.

“Hey! What’s going on?” Gemma was glaring down the table again.

“Nothing. Malfoy was being deliberately incisive and trying to disrupt the unity of Slytherin house,” said Atropa lazily, still sitting calmly in her seat. “Millie, Daphne, calm down and sit. There’s no need to make a fuss over somebody who needs two bodyguards because he’s not strong enough to fight on his own.”

“I’d take you on anytime on my own,” Malfoy growled, flushed.

“Oh, really? You’d be comfortable being beaten in a fist fight by a girl? Because the first thing I would do is knock that wand out of your hand and punch you in the face. Then I’d kick you in the dick.” 

Malfoy’s eyes widened. “That’s -!”

“Dishonorable?” Atropa sneered. “I’m a Slytherin.”

There was laughter all around the table, and Atropa had completely changed the tone of the area. A handsome Italian boy was now leaning toward her, as was a boy with spectacles and curly brown hair and a very quiet girl. Millie and Daphne were converted already, Millie grinning viciously at the thought of kicking anybody in the groin.

But the first year Ravenclaws had been listening in as well. “Hey, I’m in if you are!” Anthony Goldstein called only half-joking from the next table over. “I’ll help you kick his ass!” Michael and Terry snickered.

“I’m with what Atropa said the first time,” said Hermione loftily. “We’re all better than him.”

“Second that,” said Mandy, pointing.

“I third it,” said Padma Patil. “But I’d punch him in the face anyway.”

“Vicious,” said Terry, approving, and Padma smiled, flattered. The other girls, Atropa could tell, were quieter, and had sided with the tides - with her.

“Well, Malfoy,” said Atropa in satisfaction, “it appears you’re outnumbered.”

“You’re a bunch of idiots.” But Malfoy was starting to look genuinely nervous.

“Brilliant thing to say to a large group of people who are threatening violence against you,” said Michael Corner, scathing. Millicent Bulstrode snickered.

Malfoy at last flushed and turned away, toward Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle. They made their own little corner. 

“So,” said Atropa, victorious and decisive, “I declare that we should all form - I believe it’s called an alliance? As far as I can tell, Gryffindors are at least seen as reckless and judgmental while Hufflepuffs are looked down on. But think of all the people we have here. Between brains, creativity, cunning, and ambition, we could be unstoppable.”

And the Ravenclaws and the Slytherins both seemed to like that idea very much. “And we need a leader. I nominate her,” said the handsome Italian boy, pointing in Atropa’s direction.

“She can already do wandless magic, she’s proven it in front of me, she can do wand magic, and she’s read countless books of magical theory,” said Hermione, brisk and business-like. “Really, it makes the most sense. She’d probably be the most dangerous in a duel.”

“Yeah. Think about it. Eagle plus snake equals dragon. She’s a dragon,” said Terry, pointing.

“Oh, is that what the house symbols are? You know, I can talk to snakes,” said Atropa thoughtfully. “What?” she added as everyone stared at her. “I can see the future in dreams, too, it’s just one of the weird things I can do.”

“It’s seen as a sign of Dark magic. It’s called Parseltongue,” said the curly haired boy at last. “Slytherin himself was one. So was You Know Who.”

Atropa frowned. “Well that’s silly,” she said. And she told them Ollivander’s metaphor about the angels. “All my being a Parselmouth means is that I can fend off snakes,” she said, nonplussed.

“Good point. But it’s still totally badass,” said the Italian boy, shrugging. “And a sign of huge magical talent. So is the Dreamseeing. Got anything else up your sleeve?”

“Well… there is the place I heard the angels story…” She admitted to them about her wand. “So it’s got a totally different personality, but it’s the sister wand to Voldemort’s,” she finished.

“Wow. She said his name,” Lisa Turpin whispered, impressed. She grinned sheepishly as Sue Li beamed and clapped her on the back, and the quiet Slytherin girl smirked and gave her the thumbs up.

“I refuse to be confusing and not say someone’s name just because I’m afraid of them. Fear is healthy, but it is something one has to move past eventually,” said Atropa. “There are strategic ways to lessen fearful things.”

“Okay. I propose this,” said the Italian boy, kingmaker. “We don’t tell anyone else any of this information. But we go on to form a unit around this school, and totally rule Hogwarts. Girl Who Lived is our leader. Come on. We’re not Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs, we can do this,” he said.

And everyone seemed to generally agree.

“Okay, so we have an alliance, but secrecy is imperative,” said Atropa, hushed. “Now. I’ll introduce the Ravenclaws, and then the Slytherins will introduce themselves.”

The Italian boy was Blaise Zabini, whose mother was the infamous husband-poisoner who went by the name Black Widow. Theodore Nott (Theo) was the son of a free Death Eater who hated his father - he was the curly haired boy with spectacles. Then there were Millie and Daphne, and the quiet girl who had smirked and given them a thumbs up was Tracey Davis - a Muggleborn.

“You’re a Muggleborn and you’re in Slytherin?” said Blaise skeptically, and Theo had also raised an eyebrow. Tracey flushed and scowled, glaring.

“Just because Slytherin is where You Know Who came from -” Hermione began heatedly.

“Actually, that’s an excellent reason not to act prejudiced. Do you really want to be connected with a terrorist as a school kid?” said Atropa skeptically. “I don’t think so. There are better ways to achieve recognition.”

“What would you say to the argument that Muggleborns come from Muggle culture, and don’t understand our ways?” Theo asked thoughtfully. He wasn’t pushing, just testing her. Everyone else looked to Atropa as well.

“I would say I agree,” said Atropa. “And Muggles should have their culture, and we should have ours. But asking them to stop existing inside their own culture is ridiculous, not to mention impossible to enforce. And Muggleborns shouldn’t be rejected because they come from a different culture - and they shouldn’t be patted on the back for having one either, by the way. Rather, wizards should teach them our culture. For example, I was raised by a Muggle aunt, so you guys are going to have to help me.” She turned meaningfully to the Purebloods. “I’ll need your help.”

This seemed to make the first years feel important. And magically, the air had cleared.

“Now,” said Atropa in satisfaction, taking one last glance around at everyone. “We eat.”

And they settled down to their desserts. What a feast it was. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding…

Atropa felt good as she dunked her strawberries in her treacle fudge tart and began biting at them. She was pretty sure she had just started leading a Hogwarts force for the Light that spanned more than one house. And that was awesome.

At last, the desserts, too, disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent. 

“Ahem - just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start of term notices to give you. 

“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils, as it is a sanctuary for dangerous magical creatures. The lake is similarly off limits. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.” 

Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Gryffindor table.

“I have also been asked by Mr Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. 

“Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death.”

He seemed so serious, almost no one laughed.

“What does that mean?” She looked around to find the group watching her. “Do we go there and see?”

“No. If Dumbledore says it could kill us, it could.” Atropa was frowning. “He must be serious, mustn’t he?” she said aloud to herself. “No, for now we keep our ears open for more information.”

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Dumbledore. Atropa noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed. 

Dumbledore flicked his wand and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snake-like, into words.

“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Dumbledore, “and off we go!”

And the school bellowed:

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

Teach us something please,

Whether we be old and bald,

Or young with scabby knees,

Our heads could do with filling,

With some interesting stuff,

For now they're bare and full of air,

Dead flies and bits of fluff,

So teach us things worth knowing,

Bring back what we've forgot,

Just do your best, we'll do the rest,

And learn until our brains all rot.”

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

Atropa stood with the Slytherins. “Wait for me back in the commons,” she told the Ravenclaws seriously. “I’ll see you later tonight.” The Ravenclaws nodded, and Atropa went off with the Slytherin first years instead.

They went back into the entrance hall, following Gemma Farley, and went downstairs, deep down into the cold, dark dungeons, the stone walls lit with flaming torches. They passed by real dungeons, chains and manacles and all, before finally arriving at a blank stretch of stone wall. “Gillyweed,” said Gemma, and the stone wall slid aside to allow her entry into the Slytherin commons. “Never give outsiders our password! It changes every fortnight,” she called warningly back over her shoulder.

The Slytherin common room was a long, low, underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling in an elaborately carved fireplace ahead of them, around which carved chairs were set. Atropa and the others walked around the commons, taking a closer look around.

There was gleaming black leather and low backing in all the furniture, dark wood cupboards, and a general skull theme. A perfectly preserved wizard’s chess set sat near the fire, and everything was ultra high standard. The walls were decorated with tapestries depicting famous medieval Slytherins. A snake was carved above the skull ridden mantel piece, its emerald eyes gleaming.

“Looks like your eyes,” Blaise muttered to her, just loud enough for the others in their group to overhear; they all started smirking. They seemed to have kept close to her. Malfoy and his cronies gave them suspicious looks and they fell silent, smirking.

Out the windows was the green, murky gloom of the Black Lake, great black shapes occasionally floating by in the quiet. “We like to pretend we’re living in a mysterious underwater shipwreck,” said Gemma, smirking.

Atropa walked up to one tapestry. “Is this Merlin?”

“Yes, our most famous Light wizard!” said Gemma, delighted that she’d noticed.

“Well, we can’t all be perfect or it would be boring,” Malfoy sneered, but everyone in Atropa’s group had looked around at each other, then glanced at her and smirked. She knew suddenly what they were thinking, without them having to say it. That if she wanted to, she could outdo Merlin.

And perhaps she would. Not for other people, but because she had something to prove to herself. All these people had faith in her… it would not be misplaced.

Malfoy looked like he was starting to realize he was out of the loop, and did not particularly enjoy it. Pansy also looked worried.

They were led through a door and down a corridor that branched off in two directions. “Boys dorms down there,” said Gemma, pointing, and then she led the girls the other way. “Now, girls,” she said, grinning. “Here at Hogwarts, we believe that every girl deserves a safe space. So if a boy tries to pass this point, Hogwarts figures it out and -” She slammed the wall and a barrier of stone slammed down in front of them, making them jump. Gemma was smirking with vindictive glee. 

“Hey, I have a question,” said Atropa. “Not that I care, but… what if they don’t get out of the way in time?” She was morbidly curious.

“Slytherin is not for those with slow reflexes,” said Gemma. “Hey, Potter. Ask Hilliard about the Ravenclaw girl defenses. I’d enjoy the laugh.” The barrier lifted and she continued on down the corridor. “If you can’t even survive here,” she called back over her shoulder, “you won’t survive the wizarding world.”

Millie shrugged. “Good point,” she admitted, and they continued on into their dormitory. There, they found their beds - ancient four posters with green silk hangings, and bedspreads embroidered with silver thread. Medieval tapestries depicting more famous Slytherins covered the walls, and silver lanterns hung from the ceiling. The lake lapped soothingly against the greenish window in the dark, occasional black shapes floating by.

Atropa smiled around herself. She liked this - she liked this a lot.

“Oi. Weird Potter. Come with me.” Atropa moved to follow Gemma back out of the commons - for now. 

“Later in the week I’ll return,” she said back over her shoulder, and her friends nodded.

“Betraying us, are you?” Pansy sneered.

“Put a sock in it, Parkinson,” said Gemma flatly as they left. “You’re irritating people.” Atropa smirked. She heard snickers behind her in her wake. As they passed the boys’ corridor, Atropa saw her new Slytherin friends watch her leave in the shadows.

Gemma led Atropa up the dungeon steps and into the entrance hall, where Robert was waiting. “Hilliard. Here she is. I expect her back Wednesday afternoon.”

“Agreed, Farley.” And formally, Atropa was handed off and Robert led her up the marble staircase, into Hogwarts proper.

They passed by standing suits of armor in long corridors with high latticed windows, by moving portraits that whispered and spoke to one another as they passed, and twice they passed through sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed staircases, and at last arrived at a tightly winding staircase set into a wall. They climbed it, and got to a door at the top with no keyhole. Only a bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle.

The knocker spoke in a silvery voice. “What is the only creature that asks more questions than me?”

“The knocker asks a different question every time,” explained Robert. “It’s a riddle. You have to figure it out. I know it sounds intimidating at first, but you’ll get the hang of it and will even learn to triple check you have everything before leaving the Ravenclaw commons. In fact, it’s a great way to meet new people - you meet around the door and try to all figure out the door’s question together.”

“Well… then my answer would be the Sphynx,” said Atropa honestly.

“Well reasoned,” said the knocker, and the door swung aside to let them through. 

The Ravenclaw commons was a very airy room. It was a wide, circular room with arched windows hung with blue and bronze silks. They were obviously in one of the towers, and probably got a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains during the day. There was a midnight blue carpet covered in stars, which was reflected by the domed ceiling. The room was furnished with tables, chairs, and bookcases filled with books. Luxury echoed from Ravenclaw; there were many long, elegant, Jane Austen era blue sofas, there was polished mahogany wood, and a tall, beautiful marble statue of a woman with a crown stood along one wall. The fireplace was a small woodburning stove. 

They entered through a door and up a winding staircase. They passed the boys’ quarters, where the eyes of Atropa’s new friends watched from the shadows.

“What, Potter, do you have all of Ravenclaw converted?” Robert joked uneasily. Atropa grinned teasingly and he laughed.

“Oh, by the way,” Atropa added curiously, “what are the girl’s defenses?”

Robert scowled. “Damn Gemma,” he muttered. He sighed and explained reluctantly, “The stairs turn into a sharp, moving escalator and the boys fall back down.”

They parted ways at the girls’ entrance, and Atropa climbed the stairs alone to find her dormitory. They were in a turret off the main tower. The four poster beds were decorated with sky blue silk eiderdowns, and there was the soft sound of whistling wind around the windows. Like with the Slytherin first year girls, the Ravenclaw first year girls had an attached side bathroom. The girls of Ravenclaw were waiting eagerly.

Atropa sighed wearily and smiled. “I made it,” she said, and saw that her belongings had already been brought up. “Looks like Hogwarts will move my things from house to house for me,” she said in relief, and took up the wandering Toke in her arms.

She fell asleep that night cuddling Toke, but perhaps she’d eaten too heavily, for she had a very strange dream. Quirrell’s turban was hissing Parseltongue at her, and it was more disturbing than it sounded. Her scar burned upon awakening. She woke up in the middle of the night and scribbled down the dream, but she couldn’t figure it out, not even the next day.

What did Quirrell’s new turban have to do with Voldemort?


	10. Chapter 10

“There, look.”

“Where?”

“The one with the weird earrings and the face makeup.”

“The one with the half Slytherin, half Ravenclaw tie?”

“Did you see her face?”

“Did you see her scar?”

Whispers followed Atropa from the moment she left her dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at her, or doubled back to pass her again in the corridors, staring. Atropa wished they wouldn’t, because she was trying to concentrate on finding her way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Atropa was sure the coats of armor could talk.

The ghosts didn’t help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. The third floor bathroom was haunted the ghost of an angsty preteen girl called Moaning Myrtle, and going in the first time was a horrible surprise - it was awful trying to have a pee with someone wailing at you from the U bend.

Atropa, however, had a few tricks up her sleeve. She had her group around her. She spent the first half of the week with Ravenclaw, the second half with Slytherin - sure enough, her stuff was magically moved for her each time and Toke had full run of both common rooms. They all took to meeting together in the library, a massive and magnificent place full of dusty silence and secluded back tables where nobody would bother them. And together, they pooled their resources in order to find their way to classes on time. The Grey Lady - who would only talk to fellow Ravenclaws - became their personal, silent, intimidating bodyguard through the school after Atropa just honestly walked up to her and asked her for help finding their way around the first week. Slytherins also packed together, helping each other out, so every time she and her group passed an older Slytherin she would ask them and they would point her in the right direction, warning her against impending obstacles.

This still wasn’t enough. Atropa usually managed to avoid the school caretaker, Filch, a bitter old man with bulging lamp-like eyes who dearly hated most students and had a scrawny dust-colored cat who did much of his spying for rule-breaking for him. But Peeves the Poltergeist, a floating little man figure with wicked dark eyes, was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs out from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!”

Predictably, he loved picking on “ickle firsties.” Atropa put up with this for about two days.

Then she went to her other house ghost - the Bloody Baron. Fearlessly, she walked up to him and said, all business, “Peeves is interfering with first year Slytherins’ ability to get to class on time and learn. Everyone says Peeves is terrified of you. Can you help?”

He stared at her for a long moment, expressionless. “And why would I do that?”

She took a good look at his outfit. He had once been a very great medieval man. “Out of honor,” she said, going out on a limb.

Surprise registered on the Baron’s features. “... I’ll take care of it,” he said at last, in his hoarse voice.

Atropa was never sure exactly what the Baron did, but Peeves never picked on her or her friends again. In fact, he took to actively avoiding her. Every time she appeared, Peeves the Poltergeist would swoop away fast in the other direction. And after that, she and everyone she was with got to class on time, every time. Good at exploring her way through unfamiliar spaces, she quickly learned all the secret shortcuts around Hogwarts, and achieved the remarkable acclaim as a first year of actually getting her friends to class early. This increased the admiration and mysticism surrounding her.

Then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight at the top of the tallest tower, learning the names of different stars, the movements of the planets, and how this affected the world’s magical energies. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, magical plants and nature and their uses in magic, with a tiny little witch called Professor Sprout. They learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

History of Magic was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Many students whispered that he didn’t know he was dead. Atropa wasn’t so sure, though - Professor Binns drifted into the classroom through the blackboard each morning, which was the height of excitement in History of Magic class. Binns had a flat monotone sort of voice and often cleared his throat with a sound like chalk snapping. He never bothered to learn the names of any of his students, often confusing them with older students who had probably graduated. He gave them events, names, dates, facts, textbook readings, and they took notes for eventual essays and exams.

Professor Flitwick was so tiny he had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of the first class he took roll call, and when he reached Atropa’s name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. In spite of this, most students insisted he could change the physical, emotional, and mental properties of anything he came across in extremely complex ways, and was a master with a wand, even a former professional duelist. He could Vanish - dissolve things into air molecules - and Conjure - create things out of air molecules - with perfection. He had Atropa stay behind after his first class, and told her kindly, “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.”

“Thank you, Professor,” said Atropa, smiling.

Professor McGonagall was strict and clever, not someone to cross. She gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class. 

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will be learning at Hogwarts,” she said. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. Atropa raised her hand while everyone else was oohing and aahing. “Professor,” she said, “say I’m in a duel and I transfigure a piece of rock into a monster to fight for me. Can I then get that creation to move on its own?”

Professor McGonagall favored her with a rare smile. “In higher forms, you can control the object’s movements and give it some sentience, yes. But even in milder forms, Transfiguration can be useful. Imagine Transfiguring all the weapons in the room into feathers. It’s quite combat compliant. I can also do this.” She transformed herself into a cat and back again. “But most people never get that far. That’s extremely complex magic. The only thing no magic can create is true life.”

They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but they began small. After taking a series of notes - Hermione dominated here, answering every question perfectly as if she had just swallowed the textbook - they were given a match and ordered to turn it into a needle. Atropa and Hermione, who had a head start in wand magic, managed to make their matches silver and pointy. McGonagall showed the class their matches and then favored them with a second, rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell’s lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romania and was afraid would come back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren’t sure they believed this story. For one thing, they’d noticed a funny smell hung around his turban, and for another, when asked how he’d fought off the zombie, everyone insisted he went pink and started talking about the weather.

Unlike in McGonagall’s and Flitwick’s classes, Quirrell’s lessons turned out to be mostly theoretical - perhaps because he was terrified of wand magic. He took them very slowly indeed. As supplement, Atropa asked Flitwick if he would assist her in learning dueling and defense. “I already have a good head start on wang magic and wandless magic,” she said firmly. “But I need help.”

Flitwick studied her. “Are you willing to put in the extra work?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Yes, sir,” said Atropa.

Flitwick looked at her, and then his face split into a wide smile. “Very well then,” he said. “We’ll meet every Wednesday after classes, how does that sound?”

In case it wasn’t obvious, Atropa worked extremely hard to get the kinds of grades that she did. Ravenclaws competed madly against each other for top achievements, while Slytherins believed in supporting each other toward greatness, so she got the best of both worlds, so to speak - she got it from both ends, having been Sorted into the two highest achieving houses in Hogwarts. In fact, far from being miles behind everybody else, she found herself outstripping them all. She and Hermione competed playfully for the best scores. Hermione was better intellectually, while Atropa had more of a natural flair for magical power. But they both did well in each. People began calling her a genius; Atropa knew that was just another word for someone who put the extra effort in. Intelligent, she was; a genius, she was not.

She also joined clubs that first week. She did wizard’s chess against older students with the vast chess set in the Slytherin commons. Slowly, she learned the rules and strategy necessary to win. She also joined all of Flitwick’s art, music, and writing clubs. Delighted by her advanced artistic ability and the brand new arts she had to bring to the table, her gave her full reign and also began showing her how to make her arts more magical - animating the pictures, making the instruments play themselves with her skill set while she sang, and using fantastical inks and pens to make her writing look lovelier.

She wrote her first letters to Mrs Figg, Susie, and Rachel during that first week, using the school owls in the massive Owlery. Obviously, she was more honest with Mrs Figg, keeping her letter to generalizations with the other two. She began a correspondence with all three women, also learning more about their own lives.

By Friday morning, she had felt her way around Hogwarts and its surrounding grounds, and she was a Slytherin that particular day, though her group always sat with their backs directly to one another over breakfast, chatting. She still hadn’t visited Hagrid, and the only class she had left that she hadn’t taken - was Potions.


	11. Chapter 11

The Ravenclaws and Slytherins sat back to back against each other at their separate tables. Atropa was a Slytherin that day, and on either side of her were Daphne, Millie, Tracey, Blaise, and Theo. At the Ravenclaw table, their backs to her, were Hermione, Padma, Sue, Lisa, Mandy, Anthony, Terry, and Michael.

It was Friday morning of their first week at Hogwarts, and Atropa was pouring sugar on her porridge. 

“What have we got today?” she asked her Slytherin friends. Blaise perused his class schedule.

“Double Potions with the Gryffindors,” he answered matter of factly.

“Oh, Professor Snape is terrible,” Hermione admitted. “He made fun of me for raising my hand too many times in class yesterday.”

“Yeah, he’s a complete dick,” said Padma flatly.

“He is unnecessarily cruel,” said Anthony uncomfortably.

“Yeah,” said Terry. “Which is cheerful, preppy Anthony speak for ‘a total dick.’” Michael snickered as Anthony glared at Terry.

“I heard he favors Slytherins, though,” said Atropa curiously. “I wonder if it’s true?”

“It must be,” said Theo seriously. “According to all sources, Slytherin grades in Potions are twenty seven percent higher than any other house.”

“Excellent,” Millie grinned, and she and the smug Tracey gave each other a victorious high five. Quibbling about whether it was ethical to enjoy favoritism was for other houses.

“How do you always just know things?” Daphne wondered, looking down the table at Theo.

“That’s what I’m wondering, too,” said Mandy suspiciously.

Theo remained calm. “I never reveal my secrets.”

“You guys are so lucky,” said Lisa softly, miserable and envious.

“Yeah,” said Sue darkly. “He called me a midget with glasses.”

“Just be careful, Atropa,” said Blaise seriously. “He might test you, to see whether you’re a ‘true’ Slytherin.”

Atropa sobered. “Point taken,” she admitted.

Just then, the mail arrived. Atropa had gotten used to it by now, but it had given her a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

A total of four school owls flew down in front of Atropa this morning, nearly knocking her bacon to the floor and her juice goblet over as they landed. She checked. Yes, that was Susie, Rachel, Mrs Figg, and… Hagrid?

The last note said, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Atropa,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with an owl.

Hagrid

Atropa scribbled, “Yes, please, see you later” on the back of the note, and then sent the owl off again. She stuffed the rest of the letters in a pocket for later. “I won’t be at the library this afternoon,” she told her friends. She looked around to find them staring at her.

“What’s with all the mail?” Daphne asked, confused.

“Oh, I’m running a spy ring,” said Atropa.

“Hey,” said Blaise, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

-

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. The air was cool, the manacles and chains still hung from the stone walls, and there was an entire wall filled with labeled glass and crystal vials of mysterious potions. Pickled animals floated in greenish glass jars around the walls. Each work station was a firepit for two people and one cauldron, but there were desks beyond the work stations and that was where the first years sat.

Atropa sat down next to Neville and smiled. “How are you doing?” he asked kindly, and Neville responded pleasantly, as the rest of the Gryffindors stared in terrified disbelief.

“Feeling up for a charity case, Potter?” Malfoy asked mockingly. “How very Girl Who Lived of you, to say hello to the class loser.”

Neville flushed dark red. Crabbe and Goyle chuckled stupidly, as Pansy shrieked with laughter.

“Go hump a stump, you albino creampuff,” said Atropa flatly. “I’d still rather be talking to him than you.”

Neville wasn’t the only Gryffindor who snorted with laughter - or the only Slytherin, for that matter. “What did you say?!” Malfoy snapped, shooting to his feet. Crabbe and Goyle stood behind him, faces thunderous -

“Down, boys,” said Atropa calmly. “I could hex both of you into next week and you know it. And, you know, Malfoy? Having people threaten me for you is kind of just proving my point.”

Malfoy glared at her, his eyes narrowed. “Go sit down,” he muttered to Crabbe and Goyle at last, and the three of them reluctantly sat.

Suddenly, Snape stormed into the room, cloak flourished and his walk a kind of prowl. Like Flitwick, he started by taking roll call, and like Flitwick, he paused at Atropa’s name. 

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Atropa Potter. As our newest celebrity, is there anything you’d like to announce to the class?” His voice was heavily laced with sarcasm. But Atropa remembered what Blaise had said about a test.

“I’d prefer to prove myself in class, sir, without trying to sound like too much of a kiss ass,” said Atropa. Snape stared at her for a long moment with cold, empty dark eyes. Then, silently, he returned to taking roll.

Snape finished calling names and looked up to the class, entirely intimidating.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. Remembering Hermione’s comment, Atropa purposefully kept her hand down but her face calm and attentive. She wanted to prove herself to this Potions professor, but he wouldn’t make it easy. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Actually, that sounded awesome. More intimidated silence followed this little speech, however.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” 

An herbal question. “A sleeping potion, sir,” said Atropa.

“What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

“They are the same plant.”

“The other name for that plant?”

“Aconite, sir.”

Thank God for herbal therapy classes at Enterprise.

“And where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?”

Here, Atropa paused. She knew what Snape was doing. Asking her impossible, remote questions to see how she’d respond to frustration. At last, she said, “I’m sure I read it in the textbook, sir, but I don’t remember. I will study for the answer and tell you at the beginning of next class. One of my classmates might know the answer, but for now I don’t.”

Snape stared at her searchingly for a long moment, not malicious but obviously trying to find something wrong with this. Atropa didn’t see what he could. She’d answered most of his questions, but proven herself not to be a total know it all and answered correctly to a question she didn’t know in the process. The ball was in his court.

At last, she thought she saw Snape suppress a very slight smirk. “And that,” he said, “is how a student answers a question they don’t know. A point each for Slytherin and Ravenclaw, I suppose, Potter.”

It was her very first point. Atropa smiled, flushed with victory, and a very strange expression came over Snape’s face for a moment. It was the same expression people had when they said they’d seen a ghost in horror psychology, but this one was very strong. Then it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“A bezoar,” he said, “is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment.

Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing a simple potion to cure boils. Atropa’s partner was Neville, who was nervous and forgetful and seemed to know much less about potion brewing than she did. She did most of the work, teaching him different things as she went along, and he listened attentively enough.

Snape, who’d swept around the classroom in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles, crush snake fangs, add porcupine quills, and stir potions over the fire, criticizing almost everyone, paused by their work station.

“Very good,” he said, reserved. “But why is Potter doing all the work for Longbottom? Does he deserve such loyalty?”

“He’s my friend, sir,” said Atropa, calm but fierce. “And with all due respect, I’m teaching him as I go, so he’ll know what to do next time. I’m also keeping a disaster from happening inside the potions classroom.”

Snape looked slowly over at Neville. “And what,” he asked softly, “has Potter taught you, Longbottom? I suppose you can learn, can you not? Name one thing.”

Neville was nervous, ducking his head, but he stammered out, “I - I only add the porcupine quills after I take the cauldron off the fire, sir.”

“... Another point each for Slytherin and Ravenclaw. But I expect for Longbottom to increasingly do more work in the future,” said Snape, reserved, and he swept away.

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon later, Atropa was pleased. Snape, the hardest teacher of all, had given her the first two points she’d ever earned.

-

She was astonishingly like Lily.

Snape had been dreading meeting the Potter child, fearing an arrogant Gryffindor James lookalike. Instead, he’d found a strangely dressed girl who looked much like Lily, was a permanent hatstall, and had been Sorted into Slytherin. Curious, he had tested her…

She was just like her mother.

There was the same intelligent openness, fire yet humility, the same unpolluted mind. The same kindness and loyalty, even to the people who did not deserve it. The same challenging defiance. And the smile… it could have been Lily’s.

Snape had considered it a chore, teaching and protecting James’s child, but she wasn’t just James’s child. She was Lily’s daughter. 

And that, he thought, was the point.

-

At five to three, Atropa left the castle and made her way across the grounds. Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Atropa knocked she heard a frantic scrabbling from inside, and several booming barks. Then Hagrid’s voice rang out, saying, “Back, Fang! Back!”

Hagrid’s big hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

“Hang on,” he said. “Back, Fang!”

He let her in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound. “Let’s not ever have Toke and Fang meet,” she recommended aloud. 

There was only one room inside Hagrid’s hut. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling over the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it. There was much carved wood and deep, burnished red, the fireplace large and cracklingly cheerful, clothes thrown here and there over massive armchairs.

“Make yerself at home,” said Hagrid, letting go of Fang, who bounded straight at Atropa and started licking her ears. She giggled, making a face. Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

Hagrid settled her down with some tea - which was very good - and homemade rock cakes - which were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke her teeth. Nevertheless, Atropa pretended to be enjoying them as she told Hagrid about her first week. Fang rested his head on her knee and drooled all over her robes.

Hagrid was very supportive, but in the end he said worriedly, “I don’ know abou’ that housing, Atropa.”

Atropa frowned, getting annoyed and defensive. “What do you mean?”

“Well… Ravenclaw’s alright, I s’pose,” he said doubtfully. “But those Slytherins, Atropa… they’re nothin’ but trouble.”

“That’s gross stereotyping,” she said. “They’re not all like that. You were either a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor, weren’t you?” she added cannily.

“... Gryffindor,” Hagrid admitted at last, still frowning at her.

“Thanks, Hagrid,” said Atropa. “But I can take care of myself.” Suddenly, she spied a newspaper clipping under the tea cozy on the table, and pulled it out to look. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet, and the headline had caught her eye:

Gringotts Break-In Latest

Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.

Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.

“But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,” said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

“I didn’t know someone broke into Gringotts and then got back out,” said Atropa. “Hagrid, look at the date! The Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might’ve been happening while we were there!”

Hagrid didn’t meet Atropa’s eyes. He grunted and offered her another rock cake, then changed the subject.

Atropa read the story again. “The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied that same day.” Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you called it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

It had to be, didn’t it? Why else would Hagrid cut out the newspaper clipping and leave it with his tea things? And he’d said he’d collected the package for Dumbledore, for Hogwarts business, for something that was more than his job was worth… 

As Atropa went back for the castle for dinner - ready to live in Ravenclaw on Saturday, Slytherin on Sunday - she thought that none of the lessons she’d had so far, none of the clubs or extra teaching sessions or library meetings, had given her as much to think about as tea with Hagrid. 

Had Hagrid collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did it have something to do with the forbidden third floor corridor?


	12. Chapter 12

A notice was pinned up in all the common rooms. Flying lessons on the school brooms would be starting on the Thursday in the second week of term. Slytherins and Gryffindors would be learning together, as would Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Atropa was a Slytherin on Thursdays, which meant she’d be learning with Slytherin and Gryffindor.

“Great,” said Atropa dully. “Just what I always wanted - to make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy.” Toke curled around her ankles; she took him up and hugged him, upset.

Her Ravenclaw friends recommended she ignore him. Her Slytherin friends recommended she draw as little attention to herself as possible until she’d learned the ropes. Atropa thought a happy median might be the way to go.

The problem was, flying and Quidditch were important to wizarding boys, especially the ones from magical or half magical families. And they were particularly important to Malfoy. Malfoy talked about flying a lot, and loved bragging about how good he was at Quidditch. He complained loudly about not being allowed his own broom as a first year, about first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams, and often claimed smugly that he would show off or bully his way past these rules. He also told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters.

Would Atropa be expected to measure up to Malfoy in flying as a girl? No. Would he mercilessly tease her if she was a terrible flyer? Yes. And this was disappointing, because Atropa had really been looking forward to learning how to fly.

On the morning of, a nervous Hermione was boring them all stupid with flying tips she’d learned from a book called Quidditch Through the Ages. She seemed determined to learn anything from a book, even things that were impossible to learn from a book. She was interrupted blissfully when the mail arrived. Atropa received her latest correspondence, and was looking it over happily when she heard a shout and her head glanced up.

Malfoy was holding a small glass ball in his hand, obviously some sort of magical device, and Neville was glaring at Malfoy with his face flushed. Crabbe and Goyle as usual loomed behind Malfoy.

Atropa threw down her mail, stalked over to Malfoy, and grabbed the ball out of his hand, getting right up in his face. Crabbe and Goyle made to move forward - “Touch me and I cut your dick off,” she snapped, and they paused. She whirled around to Malfoy, who was smirking. “Is this yours?”

“No,” said Malfoy.

“Then why do you have it?”

“No reason,” said Malfoy with lazy satisfaction. “So I’m curious. Do you intend to solve all Longbottom’s problems for him?”

“For as long as it takes,” said Atropa heatedly, and she handed Neville back the little glass ball.

“Thanks, Atropa,” said Neville. “It’s a Remembrall I got from my Gran. Helps me remember things.”

Just then, Professor McGonagall stalked over. “What is going on?” she demanded.

Malfoy and Atropa glared at each other. “Nothing, Professor,” said Atropa at last. “Nothing at all.”

Unbeknownst to Malfoy, her friends had all been watching with their hands on their wands. He’d never have stood a chance.

-

At three-thirty that afternoon, Atropa and the other Slytherins climbed down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds from the Forbidden Forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

Twenty brooms lay in neat lines along the ground. The Slytherins stood in their row, and shortly afterward the Gryffindors arrived to face opposite them. Any older student could be heard complaining about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk. 

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”

Atropa glanced down at her broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles. This did not exactly fill her with confidence as to the safety of the piece of wood holding her precariously up in the air.

Well, she thought, resigned, if I die today, I suppose it was as good a time as any.

“Stick out your right hand over the broom,” called Madam Hooch at the front, “and say, ‘Up!’”

“UP!” everyone shouted.

Atropa’s broom jumped into her hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Neville’s hadn’t moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Atropa; there was a quaver in Neville’s voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground. Neville had been even more nervous about flying than Hermione. His grandmother had never let him near a broom in his life, and privately Atropa thought she’d had good reason, because Neville seemed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Atropa was delighted when she told Malfoy he’d been doing it wrong for years.

“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground hard,” said Madam Hooch. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, hover for a moment, and then you lean forward slightly, and touch back down. On my whistle - three - two -”

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch’s lips. 

“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle - twelve feet - twenty feet. Atropa saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and -

WHAM - a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started drifting lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.

Everyone sprinted toward Neville, Madam Hooch and Atropa in the lead. All the blood had drained from Atropa’s face, and Madam Hooch looked as white as she felt. They bent over Neville together.

“Neville!” Atropa cried, distraught. “Can you hear me?!”

“Yes…” Neville moaned. He looked as weak and pale as a sheet as Madam Hooch helped him sit up.

“His wrist broke the fall,” she confirmed, sounding shaken. “It’s broken. Come on, boy - it’s alright, up you get.”

She turned to the rest of the class.

“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts faster than you can say ‘Quidditch.’ Come on, dear.”

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter. “Did you see his face, the great lump? And what about you, Potter?” He sneered. “Got a thing for Longbottom, have you?”

“I didn’t know you liked fat little crybabies, Potter!” Pansy shrieked with laughter. She, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle began mocking and making fun of Neville. Blaise went to step forward, but Atropa held him back. She was canny, watchful - choosing her battles.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Padma’s twin snapped, but this just turned the jeering attention onto her.

“Look!” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s Gran sent him!”

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up. 

“Give that here, Malfoy,” said Atropa quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch.

Malfoy smiled nastily.

“I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find - how about - up a tree?”

Atropa reached her hand out in a feat of wandless magic, but Malfoy jumped out of the way and it didn’t reach him.

“See, I’ve figure it out, Potter,” he said with vindictive glee. “You have a very short range. You’re too young for your magic to go long distances yet. That’s why you couldn’t help Longbottom. So as long as I keep to spells and don’t get too close -”

Alarmed and surprised, Atropa walked forward, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. He hadn’t been lying, he could fly well. She hadn’t been giving Malfoy enough credit. He may have been a weaselly smug little shit, but he was observant, crafty, clever, and a good flyer.

Fuck.

Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak, Malfoy called, “Come and get it, Potter!” He’d been flying longer than her. He’d have the advantage. But how else would she get Neville’s Remembrall back? With a spell? What if she broke the Remembrall? Her aim wasn’t that good yet.

At last, she grabbed her broom.

“Er - Atropa, are you sure?” said Daphne, and she wasn’t the only Slytherin who looked skeptical.

Atropa winced. “No,” she admitted. She mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground.

Up, up she soared; air rushed through her hair, her cheeks flushed, her robes whipped out behind her - and in a rush of fierce joy, Atropa realized she’d found something she could do without being taught. This was easy, this was wonderful! She pulled her broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams, gasps, and admiring whoops back on the ground.

She turned her broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair.

Malfoy looked stunned, and he was. Potter had proven herself at every turn, infuriatingly good at everything she laid her hands on, always ready with the perfect cool comeback, her reputation and standing - in spite of all the odds - pristine. But he’d thought, just once, he’d had her. No, he didn’t. He had never hated anyone so fiercely in that moment. Her cheeks flushed, the wind flew through her air, she beamed in triumph, and his stomach did something funny, mingling with the hatred.

“Give it here,” Atropa called, “or I’ll knock you off that broom!”

“Is that so?” said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but he was obviously caught off guard.

Atropa knew, somehow, what to do. She leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Atropa made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.

“No Crabbe and Goyle to save your neck here, Malfoy,” Atropa called.

The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.

“Have it your way, then!” he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Atropa saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise into the air and then start to fall. She leaned forward and pointed her broom handle down - next second she was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball - wind whistled in her ears, mingling with the scream of people watching - she stretched out her hand - a foot from the ground she caught it, just in time to pull her broom straight, and she toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in her fist.

“ATROPA POTTER!”

Professor McGonagall was rushing toward them, her lips a thin white line, her glasses flashing. Atropa got slowly to her feet, adrenaline fading and being replaced by dread.

“Never - in all my time at Hogwarts - how dare you - might have broken your neck - completely against school rules -”

Several students tried to come to Atropa’s defense, Gryffindors among them, but McGonagall snapped: 

“Silence!” She turned to Atropa. “Potter,” she said icily, “follow me. Now.”

Atropa tossed the Remembrall to a stunned Ron Weasley, trying to ignore Malfoy’s triumphant face, and she followed McGonagall hesitantly toward the castle. McGonagall swept along, never looking back. Atropa wondered: Exactly how much trouble was she in? Would she really be expelled?

But something unexpected happened. McGonagall led Atropa downstairs into the dungeons, and strode into Snape’s office. He apparently had a free period. He looked up in surprise.

“Professor Snape!” McGonagall snapped. “Miss Potter was just flying without supervision against school rules! As her head of house, it is your job to expel her!”

“Flying?” Snape had stood; he looked thoughtful. “... Was she any good?”

“Professor Snape, that is hardly the point!” McGonagall snapped.

Snape gave a strange, cruel smile. “Very well, then,” he said. “We shall wait quietly while you go fetch Professor Flitwick.”

McGonagall strode out of the room.

Atropa began to speak - “Quiet, Potter,” said Snape, but he did not look angry.

Flitwick came in looking confused, and McGonagall left the three of them alone.

“Miss Potter,” said Snape, “please explain to us in detail what happened.”

Nervous, Atropa gave them the full story.

“You figured out how to shoot toward someone at high speeds, and caught a small item after a fifty foot dive, and you’d never ridden on a broom before?” Snape repeated.

“... Yes, sir?” said Atropa, wincing and waiting.

“But why is Professor McGonagall making such a fuss?” Flitwick wondered, frowning. “Clearly no one was hurt, and she was defending a fellow student from bullying and thievery.”

“Don’t you understand, Filius?” said Snape, smiling strangely once more. “McGonagall is obsessed with her own Gryffindor house’s Quidditch team. She doesn’t want Potter giving another house’s team extra strength.”

“Do you think Dumbledore would agree to bending the first year rule, Severus?” Flitwick asked, thoughtful.

“Dumbledore is attached to people, not houses. And he likes Potter. If I believed in Santa Claus, I’d think today was Christmas,” said Snape.

“So what say we reach an agreement,” said Flitwick, all business. “She divides her practice time evenly between both houses, and plays for each of them. When they are playing each other, we alternate which team gets her. The other team plays with a fill in,” said Flitwick.

“Agreed,” said Snape, and they shook on it. “I shall go get the team captains.” And he left the room.

“Very well done, Miss Potter,” Flitwick added, beaming. “A successful fifty-foot dive your first time on a broom. That’s incredible. Do you think you can put in the extra work, on top of art and chess?”

“I think so, sir,” said Atropa with a bewildered smile.

“You’d be the youngest Seeker in a century,” said Flitwick. “Quite something, I must say. We’ll have to get you a good broom.”

Suddenly, two boys walked into the room with Snape, both in fifth or sixth year. One was burly and dark with thick eyebrows, the other brunette, tall, and handsome. “Potter,” said Snape, “the one with the dark hair is Marcus Flint, Captain of Slytherin. The other is Roger Davies, Captain of Ravenclaw.”

“She’s the right build for a Seeker,” said Davies thoughtfully. “Small and fast. And if she’s as good as you say she is -”

“Her father was a brilliant flyer,” said Snape intently. “Even I can admit to that. If she can fly like him, she’s perfect.”

“She was perfect enough to get McGonagall angry and calling for expulsion,” said Flint, smirking. “Look, Potter. Quidditch is a sport. In practice you’ll get down and muddy, while flying you’ll form calluses, you’ll have to learn plays and moves, and you might have to fight dirty sometimes. Can you live with that?”

“I just love flying,” said Atropa honestly. “Give me the chance to do that, and I’ll fight for you.” She meant it; she was determined.

“Excellent,” said Flint in satisfaction. “I’ll take her.”

Davies grinned. “Well, if you do,” he said, “I have to, don’t I? Maybe it’ll be good, having some new blood on the team for a change. Shall we work out a practice schedule?”

“Will McGonagall be okay with this?” Atropa wondered. “With me getting promoted instead of expelled?”

Snape wasn’t the only one who smirked this time. “She gave you over to us. There’s nothing she can do.”

In a dark way, Atropa was pleased. What had Malfoy always said about wanting to have a broom and join Slytherin Quidditch as a first year…? And what had his preferred position been?

Seeker.


End file.
